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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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DEATH, n. Sc. usages in Phrs. and Combs. Cf. also the combs. s.v. Deid. See also Daith and Deeth.[de:θ Sc., but deɪθ Ags.]

I. Phrs.: 1. fac (a)s death, see Fac'; †2. to be like death on skytchers, to have a lean and gaunt appearance (Gall. 1824 MacTaggart Gallov. Encycl. 165); 3. to be the death o' (something), to be the cause of something going amissing; 4. to gang to death wi', to be quite sure of (something); 5. to make a death, to leave a place surreptitiously, make a moonlight flitting; 6. to tak one's death, to get one's death, to die (Abd. 1975).3. Abd.²⁷ 1948:
I canna fin' the shears. I doot Jeems his been the death o' them.4. Sc.(E) 1897 E. Hamilton Outlaws 126:
You may gang to death wi' 't that what I tauld you is sooth.5. Ags. 1831 Perthshire Adv. (6 Jan.):
Resolving, as he homeward trode, not to outlive his defeat, he "packed up his awls" and made a death the same evening, i.e. left the town without consulting his landlady.6. Ags. 1853 W. Blair Aberbrothock 7, 78:
Tam Nettles took's death in a three months after my faither. . . . After the mither teuk her death, the lasses carried on the business.Slk. a.1835 Hogg Tales (1837) II. 284:
What's to come o' you, gin you tak your death here.

II. Combs.: 1. death-candle = corp-candle, s.v. Corp, n., 3, supposed to presage death; known to Bnff.², Abd.², Fif.¹⁰ 1940; 2. death-chap, a knocking, supposed to forebode death (Cai.⁷, Bnff.², Abd.⁹, Fif.¹⁰ 1940); 3. death-deal, a board on which a corpse is stretched; 4. death-drop, a drop of water, falling heavily at intervals, believed to be an omen of approaching death; known to Fif.¹⁰ 1940; 5. death-dwam, a death-like swoon or faint (Abd.², Abd.⁹ 1940); †6. death-ill, a mortal sickness (Sc. 1825 Jam.²); 7. death ruckle, the death-rattle; †8. death-sough, “the last inspiration of a dying person” (s.Sc. 1825 Jam.²); 9. death-swap = 2; 10. death-tap, id.; 11. death-thraw, death-throe; also found (in pl.) in n.Lin. dial.; 12. death-wark, id.; 13. death-weed, a shroud; 14. death-yirm, the phlegm which causes the death-rattle.1. Sc. 1820 A. Sutherland St Kathleen IV. ii.:
She had for three nights in succession seen a death-candle flitting from the battlements of the Kaim along the cliffs.2. Edb. 1828 D. M. Moir Mansie Wauch (1839) xvi.:
I dreaded first that it was the death-chap.3. Arg. 1896 N. Munro Lost Pibroch 109:
She . . . looked at the man with . . . the death-deal under his oxter.4. ne.Sc. a.1835 J. Grant Tales of the Glens (1836) 254:
The soun' o' a death-drop seem'd to mix Wi' the patterin' o' the rain.5. Gsw. 1873 A. G. Murdoch Lilts 9:
Death-dwams he had a wizard airt in.6. Ayr. 1822 Galt Sir A. Wylie II. viii.:
I doubt his death-ill will lie at your door, Sir Thomas.7. Sc. 1815 Scott Guy M. xxvii.:
That was the death ruckle — he's dead.8. Sc. 1820 Blackwood's Mag. (Sept.) 652:
Heard nae ye the lang drawn death-sough — the death-sough o' the Morisons is as hollow as a groan frae the grave.9. and 10. Slk. 1807 Hogg Mountain Bard 27:
The death watch, the death tap, and the death swap, which is a loud sharp stroke, are still current.11. Sc. 1928 J. Wilson Hamespun 69:
While the souls that are countit the pillars o' heaven, Thro' nae faut o' their ain, in the death-thraw are stervin'.12. wm.Sc. 1835–37 Laird of Logan II. 10:
I'm sure I'm deein' noo, John, I find the death-wark coming up my breast.13. Gsw. 1873 A. G. Murdoch Lilts 29:
Guidman, in your next death-weed, Cry hooly an' ye're fairly deed.14. Gsw. 1877 A. G. Murdoch Laird's Lykewake, etc. 22:
The death-yirm gethers in my throat, an' bleerit grows my sicht.