Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

Hide Quotations Hide Etymology

Abbreviations Cite this entry

About this entry:
First published 1976 (SND Vol. X). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

CLUDGIE, n. Also cludgey, cludge.

1. A slang term for a water-closet (Fif., Edb., wm.Sc. 1975).Gsw. 1980 Christine Marion Fraser Blue Above the Chimneys (1985) 25:
Later that day I crept down to the stairhead lavatory, inserted the key and went inside. It was a square little box of a place, known to our family as 'the cludge'. Gsw. 1984 James Kelman The Busconductor Hines 115:
But Hines would go in and tell the Deskclerk himself just as soon as he felt capable of leaving the fucking cludgie. Gsw. 1985 Anna Blair Tea at Miss Cranston's 4:
There was no bathroom in that place mind ... and all the families shared the landin' cludgey. Gsw. 1985 Michael Munro The Patter 17:
cludgie or cludge A toilet. Gsw. 1987 James Kelman Greyhound for Breakfast (1988) 134:
But I just carried right on sitting there, getting more and more uncomfortable. Sometimes I couldnt even be bothered going to the cludgie. wm.Sc. 1990 Christine Marion Fraser Green are My Mountains 12:
I think my longing for elegant porcelain stemmed from my Govan days when there was just a stairhead 'cludge' with newspaper squares pinned on the door and bigger squares decorating the scrubbed wooden floor. Gsw. 1993 Margaret Sinclair Soor Plooms and Candy Balls 16:
Funny when ye think o' it, the cludgy oan the stair,
It hid a long widden seat, an a widden flair. Ags. 1994 Jan Natanson in James Robertson A Tongue in Yer Heid 107:
See the state o the cludgie, whaur they make ma character bide! Disgustin. A'd really like tae dae somethn aboot it, ken, but A'm no really allowed. See, when ye're a hardman wha's wife's left him ye canny be seen tae buy Ajax. Far less ken whit tae dae wi a lavvie brush. Edb. 1994 Gordon Legge I Love Me (Who Do You Love?) 10:
'Aye. Listen, hen, I better get going. Just need to visit the old cludge first.' Dundee 1996 Matthew Fitt Pure Radge 6:
an intirfaith drug ring
set up shoap
ben in oor cludgie
an the eejit that stuck the heid
on aa the mirrors in the pless
wull no schaa his fess roon heir again
in a hurry. Sc. 2000 Herald 16 Oct 15:
They were all smoking whacky baccy. I still refused to puff the stuff, preferring instead a good malt and a king-size Benson and Hedges. I was wrong. I should have got tore into the whacky baccy and today I might be running the marathon rather than struggling to make it to the cludgie.

2. A toilet pedestal.Gsw. 1992 Jeff Torrington Swing Hammer Swing! (1993) 232:
I'd had to pull Wattie up for lobbing packets of shit from his window because his cludgie was knackered, and Rattray, the Factor, had stalled over calling in a plumber.m.Sc. 1992 Iain Banks The Crow Road (1993) 222:
'Off-white woman speak truth,' Ash said, lowering her head to rest it on mine. 'The hots rarely survive an intense course of imagining the beloved on the cludgie.'Gsw. 1993 Herald 4 Jun 16:
The ambitious project was to have three separate cludgie exhibitions - individually entitled Number One, Number Two, and Number Three (no, the Diary will not be drawn into any discussion on what a Number Three is).Sc. 1996 Big Issue 19 Jul-1 Aug 37:
The jubilation was partly a reaction to the doing England had got in the press - but more to do with, despite Ken Clarke's claim, the "feelbad factor" abroad in the land as Britannia continues to slip down the cludgie.