Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
Hide Quotations Hide Etymology
About this entry:
First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
UNSPOKEN, ppl.adj. Also onspoken. Sc. form and usage: not spoken over, gathered or handled in silence, gen. of water or other substances used as cures in folk-medicine. Also in n.Eng. dial. Hist.Abd. 1825 Jam.:
Unspoken water. Water from under a bridge, over which the living pass and the dead are carried, brought in the dawn or twilight to the house of a sick person, without the bearer's speaking either in going or returning. Sometimes the invalid takes three draughts of it before anything is spoken; sometimes it is thrown over the house.Abd. 1847 Gill Binklets 54:
He was ordered to get a hen's egg in the morning, boiled among unspoken water, and eaten with bread and butter.Kcd. 1884 Folk-Lore Jnl. II. 377–8:
In one district at least the medicinal virtue of the nettle lay in its being “unspoken.” . . . The dish must be made of “unspoken nettles,” gathered at midnight.Per. 1900 Trans. Slg. Nat. Hist. Soc. 45:
There was a curious superstition practised to insure the safety and profit of the byre. She was strictly enjoined not to speak a single word to anybody or beast on any pretext whatever when carrying home the water — hence “the Onspoken Water.”
