Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

Hide Quotations Hide Etymology

Abbreviations Cite this entry

About this entry:
First published 1952 (SND Vol. III). Includes material from the 1976 and 2005 supplements.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

DUNNY, n. Also dunney. The underground cellars and passages usual in old tenement buildings, a basement (Gsw.¹ 1933).Sc. 1801 Three Banks Rev. (June 1959):
If we wished to secure anything he had found a dunney under his house as dry as this room.m.Sc. 1922 J. Buchan Huntingtower vii.:
That's a tough lot for ye, Mr McCunn. Used a' their days wi' sleepin' in coal-rees and dunnies and dodgin' the polis.m.Sc. 1994 Mary McCabe Everwinding Times 349:
Slowly she slipped into the direction of Otago Street, of Jojo's close, Jojo's dunny.Slg. 1932 W. D. Cocker Poems 23:
Doon in the darkness o' a dunny They ryped the corp's pooch for his money.Arg. 1918 N. Munro Jaunty Jock (1935) ii.:
Flat on flat it [land or tenement in Edinburgh] rose for fourteen stories, poverty in its dunnies, (as they called its cellars) poverty in its attics.Gsw. 1947 Forward (4 Jan.) 3:
Broken-down sewage system which periodically overflows into the dunnies and back-courts.Gsw. 1985 Anna Blair Tea at Miss Cranston's 182:
There are grim memories too of the fate of the flotsam souls of Glasgow's archways and dunnies...