A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)
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First published 2001 (DOST Vol. IX).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
(Spar,) Sparr(e, n.2 [e.m.E. sparr (1581), MLG spar, sper, related to OE spæren gypsum.] A general term for a number of crystalline minerals. —1619 Atkinson Gold Mynes in Scotland (BC) 39.]
[There was found a peece of browne sparr … which … had in it an ounce of gold … which sparr stone as I suppose, is called the sapper stone in forraine nations & provinces 1608 Mining Rec. 124.
Threttie aucht barrellis … of vrres and mettallis sparre and stone 1646 J. Hope Diary (1958) 179.
A thick mother of a grayish yallow color with a cleire blacke sparre about two inches thicke in the midle of it 1684 Sibbald Scot. Illustr. iii 52.
Ejus [sc. of silver] minera varia est, nunc rubra, nunc alba. The sparr dicitur
