A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)
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First published 2000 (DOST Vol. VIII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
(Scar,) Skar(r, adj. Also: scarr, scare, sker, scer. [Late north. ME skar ? ‘easily provoked’ (OED) (c1460), ON skjarr (of animals) shy, timid, whence skirra Scar v.1]Also in the later dial. of north-west England.
1. Shy, timid, backward; hesitant.1513 Doug. xii v 186.
Mesapus … Dovn from hys stowt cursor, na thyng skar, Smait hym a grewos wond a1568 Scott i 211.
Prent the wordis … Quhilkis ar nocht skar to bar on far fra bawrdis 1573 Davidson Sat. P. xlii 62.
Thocht ȝe wes skar, Me think that now ȝe cum ouir nar 1581 Burne Disput. 132.
Ȝe se thairfoir that ȝe ar mair skar nor vas S. Hierom 1581-1623 James VI Poems II 125/45.
Sen thair is nane that darre Æneas said bot all seamis uery skarr
2. a. Of a horse: Easily scared, restive.c1500-c1512 Dunb. Tua Mar. W. 357.
The cappill … is nought skeich, na ȝit sker [M. scer], na scippis nought one syd a1538 Abell 55b.
Bewar with this hors for he is werray skar & subtil … in the end he castis the riddar oft tymes in the myre 1679 Lauder Notices Affairs I 238.
The horse being scare, he twice threw him of
b. Of a bird: Alarmed, terrified.1535 Stewart 4493.
For quhen the bird is lampit in the lyme It helpis nocht that tyme thocht scho be skar, Becaus in tyme that scho culd not bewar
c. Only in Shetl., of sheep: Wild. 'There is an ancient act "that none keep scar sheep except it be in holms of nesses diked in [etc.]"' Samuel Hibbert-Ware A Description of the Shetland Islands (1891) 185. 1684 Descr. Zetland 79.
Here are good store of sheep, many whereof are scarr or wild
