Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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SLED, n., v. Also slede, slaid, slead, slade. See also Slid. [sled, slɛd]

I. n. 1. A sledge (Lnk. 1712 Minutes J.P.s (S.H.S.) 129; Sc. 1887 Jam.; Sh. 1908 Jak. (1928); Uls. 1953 Traynor). Gen.Sc.; also applied to a type of cart with solid wheels. Now only in Eng. dial. and U.S. Deriv. sledder, a man who drives or uses a sledge. Combs. sled-fit, -fut, †-trame, a runner or skid of a sledge, sled-ful, as much as a sledge can hold, sled-saddle, a saddle for a sledge-harness (Sc. 1808 Jam.), sladesman, the driver of a sledge, a carter.Slg. 1703 Slg. Burgh Rec. (1889) II. 100:
To cause the toune and hospitals tenents carye the stones at Newport to the tolbooth, soe far as can be caryed upon slades.Edb. 1704 Burgh Rec. Edb. (1967) 94:
The Coatchmen cairters sledders coallmen and burdine bearers.Rxb. 1721 Trans. Hawick Arch. Soc. (1912) 13:
For a sled fut when the robbish was taken away at the crose.Rs. 1727 W. MacGill Old Ross-shire (1909) I. 133:
7 pair new wheels new slade trames.Sc. 1732 Six Saints (Fleming 1901) II. 30:
I have seen corpses drawn in sleds.Sc. 1753 W. Maitland Hist. Edb. 327:
The Carters and Sledders in Edinburgh.Rxb. 1826 A. Scott Poems 40:
Things ca'd sleds, alang ilk sloppin' dale. To inn the corn, on legs were made to trail.Per. 1831 Perthshire Advert. (13 Oct.):
4 excellent carts, all nearly new; 3 corn Sledes.Mry. 1839 W. Rhind Sketches Mry. 13:
The simple pannier, borne on the horse's back, began to give way, as roads improved, to the slede, or sledge, and the kelloch. The former was a rudely constructed frame of wood, dragged without wheels on the ground.Rnf. 1845 Private MSS:
Alexander Peaston, Sladesman. Greenock.Bnff. 1880 J. F. S. Gordon Chron. Keith 437:
The harvest was got in upon sleds, i.e., two long poles trailing behind a horse, and connected by a crosspiece.Ork. 1963 Sc. Studies VII. ii. 161:
Sleds were still being employed till fairly recent times.

2. A child's cart, gen. constructed of short planks set on to the chassis of a disused pram, a Guider, q.v. (Ags., Edb., Ayr. 1970).

†3. By extension: (1) a clumsy badly-built boat (Sh. 1904 E.D.D.); (2) a large flat stone, a flagstone, freq. in pl. flat rocks on a beach, a pavement.(2) Ork. 1929 Marw.:
Hid's frosty this morning; take care an' no slide on the sleds as thoo goes oot.

†II. v. To miss one's footing, slip, slither (Sh. 1904 E.D.D.).