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Dictionars o the Scots Leid

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.