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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1971 (SND Vol. VIII). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

SHOGGLE, v., n. Also shogle, schogle; shoog(g)le, shougle; shuggle; ¶shochle. Also vbl.n. [ne., s.Sc. ʃogl; m. and s.Sc. + ʃugl, ʃʌgl, Fif. + ʃʌugl]

I. v. 1. intr. To sway, move unsteadily, to rock, wobble, swing (Sc. 1880 Jam.; Fif., Lth. 1926 Wilson Cent. Scot. 265; Uls. 1953 Traynor; Sh., n.Sc., em. and wm.Sc., Rxb. (shoogle) 1970).Sc. 1724 Ramsay Poems (S.T.S.) III. 83:
A Braid-sword schogled at his Thie.Ayr. 1826 Galt Last of Lairds xxxiii.:
It's an earthquake — I think I fin' the world shooglin beneath my verra feet.Abd. 1831 Aberdeen Mag. (Dec.) 641:
Now tossed on the back o' a black wave, she hung shougglin' in the clouds like an auld creel.Mry. 1897 J. Mackinnon Braefoot Sk. 99:
That wis the time 'at she took awa' the shoglin' briggie.Ags. 1920 D. H. Edwards Muirside 234:
A bonnie curly-haired bairn “shogglin” on her back.s.Sc. 1933 Border Mag. (Sept.) 133:
Wi' a budy's feet shooglin aboot lik' this.Bnff. 1934 J. M. Caie Kindly North 6:
A shogglin', shauchlin' cairt.wm.Sc. 1991 Liz Lochhead Bagpipe Muzak 34:
My, I haven't seen you since school. I have not clepped eyes on you since the Sixth Year Leavers' Social. I mind of you diving around in bleck tights and a big fisherman's jumper shoogling up esperins in Coca-Cola and eating the insides of Vick inhalers trying to get stoned. Cai. 1992 James Miller A Fine White Stoor 164:
His mother he spotted on the pavement outside Woolworths, bulging plastic bags of plunder in either hand. She got in, with much shoogling and peching. Sc. 1999 Daily Record (6 Feb) 12:
Shaking your booty is never going to be easy on a dance floor as crowded as this. ... But, not having brought the tin opener along, I leave the shoogling to those already occupying the floor. Sc. 2001 Scotland on Sunday (18 Mar) 38:
Our flats are different in that I like a wee bit of everything. It's quite knick knacky and I like shoogling things around. Sc. 2003 Aberdeen Evening Express (28 Apr) 20:
Imagine ... one minute, you're in a cafe, left hand shoogling the baby to sleep, the other writing about a boy wizard, the next - POOF! - you could buy and sell old Lizzie herself.

Hence shogglie, shooglie, -y, schoglie, †shuggelty, shaky, unsteady, tottery, insecure (Sc. 1825 Jam.; Per., Fif., Lth. 1915–26 Wilson; Uls. 1953 Travnor). Gen.Sc. Combs. shoogly-bed, a quagmire (Rxb. 1923 Watson W.-B.). See shog-bog s.v. Shog, v.; shoogly jock, brawn in jelly (Slg., w.Lth., Lnk. 1970); shugly-shoo, a quagmire (Uls. 1953 Traynor); shuggle-teshue, jolting, joggling.Ayr. 1822 Galt Gathering of West (1939) 40:
The steam-boats, they're shoogly things.Sc. 1828 Wilson Noctes Amb. (1855) II. 139:
Tak tent, for the steps are gey shoggly.Ayr. 1834 Galt Stories of Study III. 31:
A diligence being a kind of shuggle-teshue vechle.Kcd. 1870 Stonehaven Jnl. (9 June) 3:
Ane gudgie kist an' shoggly bed.Gsw. 1889 J. Houston Autobiography 130:
That shuggelty-shuggelty concern they ca' the Suspition Brig.Dmf. 1912 J. L. Waugh Cracks wi' R. Doo 93:
That's what they ca' a whatnut. It's a shogly lookin' thing.m.Lth. 1925 C. P. Slater Marget Pow 23:
Not a single earthquake! I'm thinkin' Italy is no' near so shoogly as what folks try to make out.Rs. 1949 Glasgow Herald (7 Feb.):
If he rode in an old tram he would say it was “afel shouglie”.Arg. 1949 N. Mitchison and D. Macintosh Men and Herring 75:
There was nothing in the butcher's excepting shoogly jock.Abd. 1961 Abd. Press & Jnl. (5 Aug.):
It was gey shoggly and sometimes I fell off.Sc. 1990 Sunday Times (12 Aug):
"It gives her a slightly more shoogly or wobbly motion than the Waverley [paddle steamer] but the silence is the thing," said Scrimgeour, who lives in Balfron. em.Sc. 1992 Ian Rankin Strip Jack (1993) 249:
'This place really should be condemned.' He slumped into the chair.
'Mind out for the shoogly leg,' warned Rebus. Sc. 1999 Scotsman (13 Aug) 10:
Porter works to echo ideas, images and languages in different contexts, but there is ultimately a rather shoogly grip on the play's tone and a lack of control in its overall rhythm and structure which prevent it from living up to the standards of its best moments. Sc. 2000 Herald (28 Sep) 21:
We can tell you that, while in Victoria, Mr Taylor was much enamoured of the Melbourne tram system. Very reminiscent of Glasgow, as is the humour to be found aboard the shoogly vehicles. Sc. 2001 Scotsman (15 Mar) 14:
Ever have one of those rough, sub-atomic off days, when you feel that you're nothing more than a shoogly mass of atoms, jittering your way through an insubstantial neutronic universe, that the centre cannot hold?

Phr.: yer jaiket/coat's on a shooglie hook/nail/peg, You are in a precarious position, you are likely to lose your job.Gsw. 1988 Michael Munro The Patter Another Blast 36:
jaiket ... The phrase of warning 'your jaiket's on a shoogly nail' is an indication that your position is not as secure as you might think; if you don't watch your step you might be out of a job.Sc. 1994 Daily Record (26 Jan) 52:
And if they send the Premier side tumbling out of the tournament, Smith knows Ivan Golac's coat would definitely be on a shoogly peg.Sc. 1995 Herald (1 Jun) 11:
When it was all over, SNP leader Alex Salmond, said it had been an enormous moral victory for the small shareholders and a massive snub for the leadership of British Gas. "My message to Giordano and Brown is change course," he added. "As we say in Scotland, their jaickits are on a shooglie nail."Sc. 1996 Herald (12 Mar) 21:
The rules are simple. A list is compiled of well-known people whose jaikets are on a shoogly nail lifespan-wise. The names are allocated in a raffle and when someone on the list shuffles off, the holder of the winning ticket takes all.Sc. 1998 Scotsman (19 Feb) 27:
Out from under a tobacco cloud IT IS perhaps just as well that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have finally removed Eddie George's jacket from its shoogly nail at the Bank of England.Sc. 1998 Daily Record (11 Sep) 71:
He needs to turn his team round very soon or a reputation principally based on his playing days at Aberdeen will not be robust enough to protect his jacket from the cruel end of the shoogly nail.Sc. 1999 Herald (21 Aug) 18:
If, as is now trumpeted in The Herald's editorial line, the entire fabric of country life and "thousands" of jobs are dependent on fox-hunting I would suggest that their coat is on a shoogly hook!Ayr. 2000:
Your coat's on a shooglie peg.Sc. 2001 Edinburgh Evening News (31 Mar) 10:
Daffers' beautifully-tailored Windsmoor jacket may be on a very shoogly nail, but the smart money is on her surviving a palace coup.Sc. 2002 Daily Mail (4 May) 12:
If he fails, his creatures will turn on him and the First Minister's jacket will hang by a shoogly nail.Sc. 2004 Evening Times (30 Sep) 4:
She said: "The politicians were scared. Malcolm Chisholm's coat was on a shoogly peg ..."

2. tr. To shake, joggle, to cause to totter or rock, to swing backwards and forwards (Sc. 1808 Jam.; Per., Fif., Lth. 1915–26 Wilson; Rxb. 1923 Watson W.-B.; Uls. 1953 Traynor; Sh., ne. and m.Sc. 1970). Phrs. to shoogle hands, to shake hands, to shoggle one's sheen, to walk or tramp about.Ayr. 1822 Galt Sir A. Wylie xxxiv.:
If, by ony mischance, she had been shooggled aff.Gsw. 1863 W. Miller Nursery Songs 11:
Stravaging win's begin To shuggle and daud the window-brods.Gsw. 1904 H. Foulis Erchie ix.:
Will I hae to shoogle hands wi' a' that crood?Edb. 1926 A. Muir Blue Bonnet xxii.:
Ye could make a kittlin look sick and shaky so easy — just wi' shooglin' it in your hands!Abd. 1928 J. Baxter A' Ae 'Oo' 29:
I've shoggle't my sheen ower the hale countraside.Ags. 1952 Forfar Dispatch (21 Aug.):
Tae get reeshled in trains and shoggled in boats.Abd. 1955 W. P. Milne Eppie Elrick i.:
To haad it on been shochlt aboot fin it wis bein cadget throwe the snaa.Gsw. 1990 John and Willy Maley From the Calton to Catalonia 23:
Folk might think yiv gave birth tae three bags a flour an twinty odd tins a beans. Right. Take the helm. Ye can shoogle it an kid on its goat a wean in it. Sc. 1992 Herald (24 Mar) 6:
"Return to Scotstounhill, please," quoth I to the ticket clerk, and presently I am sitting aboard an orange-coloured "blue train" as it shoogles through the West End of Glasgow. wm.Sc. 1995 Alan Warner Morvern Callar 118:
I was lying on the bench with my legs curled up and I'd tugged the thin dress down over as much of my legs as I could cause it was cold. Someone was shoogling me. Sc. 1999 Herald (3 Apr) 18:
Soon afterwards, Mantronik ditched his original career-plan - "I wanted to be an aerospace engineer," - for a life of dancefloor innovation. Fitting that he should become engaged in making folk shoogle about, really: "I had problems with school, with teachers - I could never sit still." Sc. 2000 Daily Record (18 Mar) 40:
He also has terrible rages. I did ask my doctor about it, but he said his head had been shoogled up a little and would eventually settle down. em.Sc. 2000 James Robertson The Fanatic 236:
If ever there was a day when she needed the skills of her craft, this was it. To be able to put a dwam on her jailers, shoogle the locks and open the great heavy doors of the Tolbooth. To slip on the guise of a cat, slink out, and take herself off to the shore.

3. To jog along, move with little unsteady jerks; to shuffle in walking (Lnk. 1825 Jam.; Sh., Cai. 1970).Kcd. 1933 L. G. Gibbon Cloud Howe 175:
He never would stop, would just shoggle on.Cai. 1961 “Castlegreen” Tatties an' Herreen' 38:
He shoogled queekly oot o' bed.

II. n. A jog, jolt, shake (Ayr. 1825 Jam.; Bnff. 1866 Gregor D. Bnff. 149; Uls. 1953 Traynor; I. and n.Sc., Ags. 1970), lit. and fig.; a swing on a rope, tree branch, etc. (Ags., Per., Slg., Ayr. 1970).Ayr. 1822 Galt Entail lxxvii.:
Gie that sleepy bodie, Dirdumwhamle, a shoggle out o' his dreams.Wgt. 1877 G. Fraser Sketches 311:
“The lasses hae forgot tae gae't the shoggle;” meaning, that the water and the whisky had not been shaken and incorporated.Bnff. 1935 Abd. Press & Jnl. (17 Jan.):
Her wardle may get a sair shogle.Ags. 1961 People's Jnl. (7 Jan.):
The girny wife's pride got a shogle.Ags. 1988 Raymond Vettese The Richt Noise 64:
The airt you gie me's aye the north.
Heid tae the wun or dowp tae yirth,
nae maitter, the harns pirl roon
an' wi a shoogle an' a trummle syne settle doon
and point me whaur I'd be. Sc. 1994 Daily Record (6 Aug) 21:
But the new-style trams will lack one thing - the famous "shoogle"! Next week, Strathclyde Region will unveil its plans for a new 21st century tram system that promises to be one of the most advanced in Europe. Sc. 1994 Herald (20 Aug) 22:
The first portion of the journey along the coast and up into the mountains is on the "tramway de la Balagne", a passage well worth the shoogle as you perambulate along the tiny bays of the coast to l'Ile Rousse and head for the climb to Ponte Leccia. Abd. 1998 Sheena Blackhall in Neil R. MacCallum Lallans 51 15:
There wes a dunt, a shuggle, an a rickle o flames teirin out o the rocket's dowp, ... Edb. 2004:
Gie the salad dressin a shoogle tae mix it right. Ayr. 2005:
It's a bit rusty but it still works - you just have to give the key a bit of a shoogle in the lock.