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First published 1934 (SND Vol. I).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
BACHILLE, n. (See second quot.)Sc.(E) 1864 D. M. Ogilvy Willie Wabster's Wooing (1873) 39:
Wha rented mony a buirdly bachille. [Prob. borrowed from Jam.]Fif. 1825 Jam.2:
Bachille. A small spot of arable ground.
[Jam.'s sole authority for this word as Sc. and Fif. is a quot. from Lamont's Diary 1665, p. 225: “In Levens water, . . . a littel beneath John Strachans bachille ther”; but the meaning of bachille here is most prob. boat-house, otherwise spelled batschele, baitschele, from O.E. bāt, a boat, and schele, Mod. Sc. sheiling. (See D.O.S.T. s.v. Batschele.) Conan Doyle uses bachelle = a measure of land in The White Company and prob. got it in Froissart's Chron. (1842) lxi. 83 Note (from Gloss. Du droit. Fr. de Laurica) where it is stated that “the bachelle was composed of ten maz or meiz (farms, or domains), each of which contained a sufficiency of land for the work of two oxen during a whole year.” Bachelle seems to have been used in Fr. to indicate the extent of land necessary to qualify for the first grade of chivalry. (See Roquefort Glossaire de la langue romane I. p. 120, Paris 1808.) In this sense it cannot be considered a Scottish word.]
