Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
STRIP, v.2 Sc. usages of Eng. strip, to take off a covering, of clothes, soil, etc., to plunder. Combs.: (1) strip-hill, see quot.; (2) strip-plough, appar. a shim-plough, for removing top turf, weeds, etc.(1) s.Sc. a.1838 Jam. MSS. XI. 177:
It is by no means uncommon for those who have come over from Ireland for harvest-work to flatter young women to accompany them on their return with the promise of marriage, and then turn them back, after stripping them of all the property they took with them, it is usually said, with no great feeling on such an occasion, “An Irish sweetheart took such and such a one to Strip-Hill and turned her home again” or “left her there.”(2) Fif. 1845 Stat. Acc.2 IX. 270:
An iron strip plough . . . £2, 2s.
Phr.: strip-the-willow, A popular Scottish country dance, usu. danced in sets of three or four couples.Sc. 1924 Scottish Country Dance Book Book 1 16:
Strip the Willow or Drops of Brandy ... Running step is used all through this dance. Sc. 1980 Lesley Lewis The Private Life of a Country House (1912-1939) 166:
'Strip the Willow', a country dance in which couples in turns came from the ends of two rows to perform some steps in the middle.Sc. 1990 Times 27 Aug :
The innovation became a huge success, but transformed the dance in some eyes from a genteel but lively reel to something more akin to the rumbustious and limb-endangering Strip The Willow.Sc. 1996 Herald 28 Feb 12:
For a start, he couldn't dance. Strip the Willow was beyond him, the Gay Gordons anathema to a man who seemed to regard his stature as an encumbrance.Sc. 1999 Edinburgh Evening News 11 Dec 13:
"We had this fantastic black-tie dinner and ceilidh at Borthwick Castle," she says. "The dancing got pretty wild and frenzied and I asked my partner Neil Cunningham (who also works with me) three times to slow down during Strip the Willow.Sc. 2004 Daily Mail 22 Sep 27:
More than 1,200 children from Ellon Academy descended on a local playing field yesterday and took their partners for the Dashing White Sergeant, Virginia Reel and Strip the Willow as they waltzed past the previous largest ceilidh gathering.
