Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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About this entry:
First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
ROTTEN, adj. Sc. usages:
1. As in Eng. Sc. combs.: rotten yow, fig., an unwholesome person given to much expectoration (n.Sc. 1825 Jam., s.v. Yow).
2. Dirty, soiled, covered with stains, mud, or the like (Mry. 1968).
3. Drunk (Gsw. c.1934 Partridge Dict. Slang; I., ne., e. and wm.Sc. 1968). Also rotten drunk, id. (ne. and sm.Sc. 1968), -mirac (Abd.13 1910).
4. Applied to rock: in a crumbling, decomposed condition. Appar. of Sc. orig., introduced into Eng. by Sc. geologists.Sth. 1795 Stat. Acc.1 III. 551:
When the turf is taken off, the rock is seen to be in a mouldering state; and when this rotten rock, (as it is called), is laid upon a road, in a few years it is changed into a reddish earth.Sc. 1805 R. Forsyth Beauties Scot. III. 112:
Besides the hard sort, much is to be found of what is commonly called rotten whin.Ayr. 1811 W. Aiton Agric. Ayr. 42:
Grey-wake, and all the ordinary species of broken whin metal, termed by the country people rotten rock abounds in every parish.Kcd. 1813 G. Robertson Agric. Kcd. 29:
A very fertile soil consisting of decomposed basaltes, or Rotten rock, as it is called.Sc. 1839 R. Murchison Silurian Syst. I. 341:
The subsoil . . . consists of rotten shale with scarcely the vestige of a solid bed of stone.
