Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1965 (SND Vol. VI).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
LECK, n.2 Also lake (Abd. 1952 W. M. Alexander Place-Names 414). [lek, lɛk]
1. A flat stone or slab; a flat rock or rocky ledge in the sea, common in place-names in N.E. Abd.Kcb. 1901 Gallovidian X. 71:
A great flat leck as big as a door step.Bch. 1943 W. S. Forsyth Guff o' Waur 3:
When stormy seas roared hairse among the lecks.
2. A form of trap rock which normally breaks in flat step-like formations, used at one time for oven-slabs (Fif., Lth. 1808 Jam., Add.). Hence leck-stone, id. (misprinted as leek-stone).Bwk. 1809 R. Kerr Agric. Bwk. 41:
These [trap, whinstone, and amorphous basalt] often graduate into each other, and are often intermixed, in their imperfect, irregular, and troubled stratification, with a half lapified tough and compact clay, called leck by the quarriers.Fif. 1819 Edb. Ev. Courant (3 April) 4:
There are excellent leck-stone quarries on the property, which can be worked at little expence.Fif., w.Lth. 1876 D. Page Econ. Geol. 214:
The Leckstones, as they are called, are open, granular varieties of trap. … We have seen them quarried in Fife and Linlithgow, but the cheaper and handier slabs of fire-clay have driven them, we believe, entirely out of the market.
