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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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About this entry:
First published 1941 (SND Vol. II).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

BLASHY, adj.

1. Rainy, wet, gusty. Gen.Sc.Sc. 1725 Ramsay Gentle Shepherd Act I. Sc. ii. in Poems (1728):
The thick blawn Wreaths of Snaw, or blashy Thows, May smoor your Wathers, and may rot your Ews.Sh.(D) 1915 G. W. Stout in Old-Lore Misc., Ork., Sh., etc. VIII. i. 60:
Hit wiz ē blashy nicht, late a hairst-time, it (that) wir bold fölla wiz nearly driven ùt o' 'is wits — a' trow da cause o' a rinklin lamp.e.Lth. 1794 G. Buchan-Hepburn Agric. of E. Lth. 73:
The smut in wheat was most general after a wet open winter, and a cold dropping, or, as we vulgarly call it, a blashy spring.Lnk. 1928 T. S. Cairncross in Scots Mag. (Feb.) 349:
Dootless she's had a blashy road to traivel.

2. Applied to meat or drink: weak.Sc. 1820 Blackw. Mag. (Nov.) 154:
Ah, sirs, thae blashy vegetables are a bad thing to have atween ane's ribs in a rimy night.Sc. 1825 Jam.2; Bnff.4 1912; Abd.19 1934; Rxb. 1923 Watson W.-B.:
Blashy. Applied to meat or drink that is thin, weak, flatulent, or viewed as debilitating to the stomach.

[D.O.S.T. does not give blash or blashy for O.Sc. Ramsay, in his version of Dunbar's Thistle and the Rose, x., lines 4–5, gives “That nowther blashy Shower, nor Blasts mair cauld, Sud Flowirs effray.” In the S.T.S. ed. of Dunbar the lines are “And that no schouris, nor blastis cawld, Effray suld flouris.”]

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