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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

PERFERVID, adj. Very fervid, ardent, enthusiastically patriotic, adopted from Buchanan as a standing epithet for this type of Scot (see note). Now also in Eng.Sc. 1852 North British Review (Aug.) 286:
Without maintaining at present that all Scotchmen are perfervid — that Scotchmen in general are, as we have seen it ingeniously argued, not cool, calculating, and cautious. but positively rash, fanatical, and tempestuous.
Sc. 1889 J. S. Blackie Sc. Song 162:
The perfervid genius of the Scot.
Sc. 1935 A. F. Murison Memoirs 145:
Much more perfervid remonstrance came from all the ends of the earth about the strictures I had made on the patriotism of Bruce.
Sc. 1963 Gsw. Herald (19 Aug.):
Any Scot who has travelled and met his fellow countrymen abroad knows that there is no more perfervid Scot than the exile.

[The orig. phr. of Buchanan is Scotorum praefervida ingenia, “the hot or impetuous character of the Scots” (History XVI. li.). This was misread as perfervida, as if from per-, intensive pref., and fervidus, and the phrase was later applied to any or all of the supposed traits of enthusiasm in the Scottish character and hence to anyone exhibiting these or to one who was thought to be typically or assertively Scottish in outlook.]

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