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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1965 (SND Vol. VI). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then 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.