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A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)

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First published 1963 (DOST Vol. III).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

Lintquhite, n. Also: lyntquhit(e, -quhyte, lintwhite, -whyt. [Corresp. to north. ME. lynkwhytte (Thornton Morte Arth.): also in the mod. Sc., north. Eng. and north. Irish dial. as lintwhite (as well as the derived form lintie, which appar. does not occur in Older Sc.). Of doubtful derivation.OE. had línetwíᵹe appar. f. lín flax (Line n.¹), on the seeds of which the bird feeds, and -twiᵹe (also in OE. þisteltwíᵹe thistle-finch), lit. ‘flax-plucker’: (the OF. linette, -ot(te, whence mod. Eng. linnet, and the OE. línece are formed likewise on the word for ‘flax’). But the later north. Eng. and Sc. word can hardly derive from this OE. word as it stands. The second element of the later word is conceivably imitative (of the song of the bird), as in the later Eng. twite (1676), earlier twy [? te] (1562), the mountain linnet. If this is correct, the whole word may have arisen as an alteration on these lines of OE. línetwíᵹe, or, alternatively, as an independent formation with either Lint n. or OE. lín, ME. lyn(e, line, Line n.¹ as its first element, the analysis as lint flax + white following later in either case.]

The linnet. Also attrib. with -egg. 1513 Doug. xii. Prol. 240.
Goldspynk and lyntquhite [Sm. lyntquhyte, R. lintquhite] fordynnand the lyft 1549 Compl. 39/24.
The lyntquhit sang cuntirpoint quhen the osȝil ȝelpit a1605 Montg. Ch. & Slae 5 (Wr.).
The lintwhite, lark and laverock loud Saluted mirthful May 1683 Garden Macfarlane's Geog. Coll. II. 142.
The small bird called the snowfleck, it is supposed to be the moor sparrow or lintwhite having changed their colour a litle whiter in the winter c 1690 Roxb. Ballads (1888) VI. 607 (OED.).
The lint-white loud and Progne proud … do sing as sweetly as in Yarowattrib. 1655 Wemyss Chart. 242.
Ane corbie stone, quhich is long lyik ane lint-whyt egg and transparent