Dictionaries of the Scots Language
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.

†MISK, n. Also misken, misking, and deriv. miskery. A damp, boggy, low-lying stretch of grass-land (Cld., Ayr. 1825 Jam., wm.Sc. 1868 Laird of Logan Add. 509). Also attrib.; by transf., the bog-myrtle, Myrica gale, found on marshy ground (Rnf. a.1850 Crawfurd MSS. (N.L.S.) M. 48). Hence misk-grass, the rank grass which grows on this type of ground (Ayr. 1825 Jam.); misk nits, the marsh cinquefoil, Comarum palustre (Rnf. a.1805 Crawfurd MSS. (N.L.S.) M. 51).Rnf. c.1700 Crawfurd MSS. (N.L.S.) M. 51:
All and Haill the Three Roods of Land or thereby called the Misking ground of the 20/- Land of Auchinhean, Lying North East of the Peat or Muir Road . . . A Park in the Woodhead Lands in the Castlesempill Estate called Misken Park.Ayr. 1756 Session Papers, Earl of Crauford v. Ralston (6 Dec.) 17:
There is now some Pieces of Miskery at the Loch Edge.Ayr. 1820 G. Robertson Descr. Cunninghame 163, 164:
A low, swampy valley, called the Misk, intervenes betwixt these hills and the more fertile arable lands which occupy the rest of the parish, and which is in good cultivation and very generally embellished with belts and clumps of wood around the seats of the proprietors . . . Coal is very prevalent, and has long been wrought to great extent — more especially in the Misk. where little good land is marred by the operations. . . . The soil of the Misk, is of a marshy consistency, composed of water-worn gravel, moss and blown sand, concocted into one mass. The tract itself is a hollow space, as if it had once been the bed of some widely-spreading stream.Lnk. 1880 M. Gebbie Strathavon 89:
At the foot of this lay what is provincially called “misk,” or boggy land.Ayr. 1880 Jam.:
In Ayrshire, the misk is usually the property of neighbouring lairds or feuars. One vassal can, in terms of his title-deeds, pare off the peats only; another is confined to the surface produce — the bog-hay, etc., as winter fodder, or to the right of pasture under fixed limitations. Indeed, the rights of the misk were always clearly defined in the “tacks” of the adjoining lands. For example in 1732, Marie Buntine set or granted “a Tack of hir land of the Brigend (in the parish of Lochwinnoch), to John Kirkland, reserving out the Tack the Six Falls of Wet-Misk,” etc., etc., for as the deed proceeds to tell, she intended “to plant trees on it.”Ayr. 1932 D. Murray Early Burgh Organ. II. 224:
In some parts of Ayrshire the term “misk” or “misken” is applied to flat damp land.