Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Advanced search lets you search beyond the dictionaries' headwords. Here you can search the full text of all entries (the default option), their illustrative quotations only, or the full text excluding the quotations.

Enclose an entire phrase in quotation marks (" ") to search for those precise words in that order. Punctuation will be ignored.

You can use wildcard characters to help you find what you’re looking for when you’re not sure about the spelling.

Use ? to stand in for exactly one unknown character.
Use * to stand in for any number of unknown characters.

Wildcards cannot be used:

• to stand in for whole words; only for one or more characters within a word.
• in phrases; only for one or more characters within a single word.

Use ‘AND’, ‘OR’ or ‘NOT’ (Boolean operators), to make your search more specific. These must be entered in UPPER CASE to work.

AND: Finds examples where both terms appear.

OR: Finds examples where either term appears.

NOT: Finds examples where the first term appears without the other.

You can use more than one Boolean operator in the same search. You can also choose between searching the entire dictionary, only the quotations, or the entire dictionary minus the quotations.

If you limit your search to ‘Quotations only’ you can additionally specify a date range to see how a word is used in that particular period. To search for quotations from a single year, just enter the same year in the ‘From’ and ‘To’ boxes.

If you’re interested only in evidence from 1700 onwards, choose SND. For pre-1700 evidence only, choose DOST.