Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1952 (SND Vol. III).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
Quotation dates: 1747-1846, 1897
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DUNGEON, n. Sc. fig. usage. Applied to persons of great knowledge, quasi a deep repository, freq. in phr. a dungeon o' learnin' (Bnff.2, Abd.9, Ags.17, Fif.10, Slg.3, Kcb.1 1941). Also in n.Yks. dial.Sc. c.1747 R. Mackenzie John Brown of Hdg. (1918) viii.:
"Do you not know the man who got his learning from the devil?" . . . "I warrant you he's a dungeon, then."Sc. 1776 Weekly Mag. (1 Aug.) 175:
I have obliged them to confess me a dungeon of lear.Sc. 1832–46 Whistle-Binkie (1841) 81:
Although he's a dungeon o' Latin and Greek.Edb. 1897 P. H. Hunter J. Armiger's Revenge 33:
They say he's a fair dungeon o' learnin', an' I daursay he may be.w.Sc. 1773 Boswell Tour (1785) 429:
Before Dr Johnson came to breakfast, Lady Lochbuy said, "he was a dungeon of wit"; a very common phrase in Scotland to express a profoundness of intellect.Lnk. a.1832 W. Watt Poems (1860) 189:
And but few o' his trade e'er his fitstaps will fill, For a dungeon for craft was auld Mungo McGill.
Hence dungeon-headed, adj., very learned.Dmf. 1806 Scots Mag. (March) 207:
A deep, a dungeon-headed billie.
