Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

Hide Quotations Hide Etymology

Abbreviations Cite this entry

About this entry:
First published 1956 (SND Vol. IV).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

GIBBET, n. Also †gyppet (Wgt. 1709 in G. Fraser Wigtown (1877) 57). Sc. forms and usages of Eng. gibbet:

1. The swee or chimney bracket for suspending a pot over the fire. “The term is still so used in various districts of Scotland. The largest pots were hung on the swee itself, or were attached to it by a strong double hook called the gibbet-gab” (Jam.⁶; ‡Fif. 1954).

Combs.: (1) gibbet-gab, see above; for gab, see Gab, n.³; (2) gibbet-pan, “the largest pot or pan used in cooking: so called because it generally hung on the gibbet or swee” (Jam.⁶).

2. See quot.Sc. 1844 P. Chalmers Dunfermline 363:
The frame of the loom, which consists of four scorebands, or connecting rails, two upper and two lower, to keep it steady, and two gibbets, or false capes, or cap-trees, as elsewhere called, at right angles with the upper scorebands in which the bearers rest.