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 1965 (SND Vol. VI). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

MONIEPLIES, n.pl. Also moni-, mon(n)y-, money-; mono-; -plyes. [′monɪpl(ɑ)ez]

1. The third stomach of a ruminant (Sc. a.1838 Jam. MSS. XII. 167; Per. 1915 Wilson L. Strathearn 258; Fif., Edb. 1956). Cf. Moniefauld and Eng. dial. manifold; jocularly of human beings: the bowels.Sc. 1803 Prize Essays Highl. Soc. 218:
The food parches the stomach and intestines, hardens and concretes in the fold of the second [sic] stomach or monnyplies, so that the dung of the animal is excreted in small quantities.Rnf. 1815 W. Finlayson Rhymes 112:
Wi' a patfu' o' guid monie-plies.Peb. 1829 Trans. Highl. Soc. I. 46:
The third division is denominated Monoplies, from its internal structure consisting of innumerable folds or doublings.Sc. 1834 M. Scott T. Cringle's Log ii.:
Evidently most of them had but small confidence in their moniplies.Edb. 1979 Albert D. Mackie in Joy Hendry Chapman 23-4 (1985) 44:
Gin damp could sae mislear the wits o Rousseau,
What micht this partan's tae that's yokit in
My moniplyes no dae to my ingyne?

2. Fig. A complicated, tortuous argument or statement. Used punningly in 1835 quot. Deriv. moniplied, tortuous, winding.Sc. 1728 P. Walker Six Saints (Fleming 1901) I. 8:
To rip up, and lay in broad-band, the foul moniplyes of that bundle of these intricate implicate, multifarious, and unnecessary oaths.Sc. 1823 Scots Mag. (Oct.) 401:
Our poor little libel, followed by defences, and all other procedure, and with the constant dropping in of new facts and new arguments, in the course of its moniplies . . . in due time acquires a goodly size.wm.Sc. 1835 Laird of Logan 121:
It was next necessary to lodge replies, and that after that, probably duplies would be ordered. “And after that, I suppose,” rejoined the magistrate, “comes the money-plies, which, nae doubt, ye'll reckon the best o' a' plies.”Sc. 1926 H. M'Diarmid Penny Wheep 13:
And God has forgotten, it seems, In the moniplied maze o' the forms The a'efauld form o' the maze.