Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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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.
BARNMAN, n. A thresher.Sc. c.1733 A. Carlyle Autobiog. (1860) 25:
I took him for a grieve or barnman.Sc. 1816 Scott O. Mortality viii.:
A barnman, a white-headed cow-herd boy, and Cuddie the new ploughman and his mother, completed the party.Abd. 1877 W. Alexander North. Rural Life in the 18th Cent. 144:
About farms of considerable extent there was in addition the barnman. In winter it was his [the professional flailman's] business every day and all day long to ply “the thresher's weary flingin' tree.”Bwk. 1837 G. Henderson in Proc. Bwk. Naturalist Club I. v. 148:
I once knew an old barn-man, by name David Donaldson.Rxb. 1901 W. Laidlaw Poetry and Prose (1908) 60:
The auld wife then would stop the wheel, The barnman lay aside his flail.
Comb.: barnman's-jig, a thresher's dance.Gall. 1824 MacTaggart Gallov. Encycl. 49:
Barnman's-jig. This is a dance which those persons have who thrash with the flail. The swoople on the end of the hand-staff being whirled round on the barn-floor by the barnman; every wheel he gives it, he leaps over it, and so produces a very singular dance.
