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.
PLEASANCE, n. Also pleasaunce; pleasants. Sc. forms and usages. [′plizəns]
†1. Joy, pleasure, happiness, satisfaction. Obs. in Eng.Ayr. 1822 Galt Sir A. Wylie lxxxvii.:
It's a great pleasance to me to see and hear of a lad from our ain gait-end, that has done so weel as they say ye hae.Lth. 1853 M. Oliphant Harry Muir xxvii.:
Deliver them from the evil eye that grudges at their pleasaunce.
2. As in arch. Eng., but in Sc. also in form †pleasants through being understood as a pl.: a pleasure-ground, park, either attached to a castle or mansion or on its own, surviving in Scot. as the name of a street or area of a town, as the Pleasance in Edinburgh and in Falkirk.Sc. 1707 Edb. Ev. Courant (30 July–1 Aug.):
Two Acres and a Half of Land with Houses, Barns and Barnyards lying at the back of the Crackling House near the Pleasants.Sc. 1767 Ib. (9 May):
A house called Southfield House . . . standing by itself with an entry from the Pleasance.Ayr. 1824 Galt Rothelan II. xiv.:
She rose and went down into the pleasants of the castle.Fif. 1894 J. Menzies Our Town 142:
Half a mile to the north of Our Town was the row of half a dozen houses which bore the suggestive title of “The Pleasants”.Kcb. 1896 Crockett Grey Man vii.:
She would make shift oftentimes to pass me in the pleasaunces of the house of Culzean.Sc. 1926 L. Spence Plumes of Time 55:
In nae mirk nor sun-apparelled noon, Nor pleasaunce of the planets in their place.Sc. 1940 Bk. Old Edb. Club XXIII. 139:
The reader will be well advised to relegate to its proper place the fiction foisted upon a credulous world by Maitland . . . He surmised that Pleasance [in Edinburgh] took its name from a nunnery of St. Mary of Piacenza founded in the vicinity.Ayr. 1951 Stat. Acc.3 785:
Two neighbouring castles, Newark and Greenan, in more open country, were called the “pleasances”.
