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Dictionars o the Scots Leid

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.

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.