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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

PENDICLE, n. Also pendikle, penticle; ¶pinnackle; ¶perpendicle (Per. 1795 Stat. Acc.¹ I. 480). [′pɛndɪkəl]

1. Something dependent on or subordinate to something else, an appendage, dependency, adjunct, satellite, appurtenance, a minor part. Sc. Law phr. all parts (pertinents) and pendicles, all adjuncts and dependencies (of a property) except the regality (Sc. 1946 A. D. Gibb Legal Terms 64); also used loosely in non-legal contexts. See also Pertinent.Arg. 1701 Analecta Scot. (Maidment 1834) I. 115:
There is also a little Ile, called Bernara, a pendikle to wit of Lismore.Sc. 1715 A. Pennecuik Works (1815) 153:
This town [Lintoun], in the Regent of Mortoun's time, was a pendicle of Dalkeith.Sc. 1784 Session Papers, Brown v. Guthrie (17 Jan.) 7:
There is the general clause of parts, pendicles, and pertinents, subjoined to the description of the subjects conveyed.Peb. 1795 Stat. Acc.¹ III. 360:
It was a parsonage, having four churches belonging to it which were called the pendicles of Stobo.Ags. 1821 Montrose Chron. (5 Jan.):
She sets to work and relates the various parts and pendicles of dress which she observed upon this person and the next one.Ayr. 1822 Galt Steam-boat ii.:
We were at this pendicle of the narration when the steam-boat came opposite to the old castle of Newark.Sc. 1824 Scott Redgauntlet xxiii.:
The Lords themselves pooin' in their chairs . . . and crying on the clerks for parts and pendicles of the process.Edb. 1828 D. M. Moir Mansie Wauch xi.:
Whatever was part or pendicle of the coat at the time of purchase . . . became . . . part and pendicle of the property of me, the legal purchaser.Sc. 1847 Chambers's Jnl. (3 April) 210:
Men with their families were sold as pendicles of property in Scotland. We allude to the last fragment of legal serfdom in the British islands, as it existed in relation to the operative salt-makers and coal-miners.Kcb. 1900 Crockett Stickit Minister's Wooing 343:
I will take you with the other pendicles of the estate. wm.Sc. 1965 Alan Sharp A Green Tree in Gedde (1985) 180:
The butcher's windows made large sanguinary abstractions, patterns of blood, flesh and fatty marble, bacon slivered and quartz streaky, the shiny lobes of kidneys and the textures of tripe, trays of pork chops pale commas, while within, mute, heel hung pendicles, the hackered knackered sheep drool black blood and swing to the brush of the shoppers.

2. Specif.: (1) a small piece of ground forming part of a larger holding or farm and freq. let to a sub-tenant (Sc. 1825 Jam.; m. and s.Sc. 1965). Often applied as a place-name to small pieces of ground, orig. pendicles but now detached and independent. In Mry. 1884 quot. used simply of a strip of ground. Hence pendicler, -ar, the tenant of a pendicle, a smallholder.Inv. 1758 Forfeited Estate Papers (S.H.S.) 105:
¾ parts of a pendicle or outfield, pasture, and sheep gang called Relick.Per. 1769 Survey Lochtayside (S.H.S.) 89:
Divided amongst the different farms and pendiclers as if pasture.Ags. 1795 Stat. Acc.¹ XIII. 490:
The other possessors of land are the 46 pendiclers, who are generally tradesmen, and hold a few acres of a proprietor.Per. 1799 J. Robertson Agric. Per. 65:
Diminutive possessions, which are called Pendicles, because they are small portions of the land allotted by a farmer to cottagers, labourers and servants, and therefore appendages of the farm.Slk. 1834 Hogg Domestic Manners Scott (1909) 91:
I was to have a handsome house, a good horse, a small pendicle, rent free, and twenty pounds a year.Rxb. 1845 Stat. Acc.² III. 362:
Some smaller pendicles would appear to have been held by other proprietors.Per. 1872 C. Innes Sc. Legal Antiq. 266:
A pendicler . . . is one who has a certain small quantity of grass and corn land. The tenure is sometimes from the proprietor, sometimes from the tenant. . . . The crofter differs from the pendicler, for the crofter's cattle are herded and pastured along with those of the tacksman, at least in summer and harvest.Inv. 1884 Crofters' Comm. Evid. I. 756:
The proprietor then gave the people full liberty to reclaim as much as they could of the common at their own expenses, with a promise that it would become a pendicle of the croft.Mry. 1884 Trans. Highl. Soc. 77:
The soil on the farm is mostly light and sandy, and is intersected by pendicles of good loam.Knr. 1925 H. Haliburton Horace 252:
Oh, wae the day the puir man tint it, His cot an' pendicle ahint it!Fif. 1947 Scotsman (7 July):
The farmhouse is substantial; there are seven cothouses (two just reconditioned), another on the pendicle of Boghall.Per. 1965 Scots Mag. (March) 523:
Fowlis Wester was a community of “pendiclers”, each with a small piece of land for which rent was paid in labour to the farmer to whose farm the piece of land was “appended.” Only two of Fowlis's inhabitants still carry on something of the old way of life.

(2) in the organization of the Trades Incorporations: a trade or tradesman not fully incorporated and having limited rights or occupying an ancillary or subordinate position (see 1912 quot.). Hence pendicle-member, pendicle trade.Ags. 1711 A. J. Warden Burgh Laws Dundee (1872) 176:
The Court discharges all the Pendicles of the Guildrie to receive members in their respective callings without consent of the Deane of Gild.Gsw. 1771 Records Trades Ho. (Lumsden 1934) 539:
This year his name was not insert in the qualified roll for no other reason but that he had not made an essay and was insert in the said incorporation books as what is called a penticle member.Sc. 1803 Morison Decisions 10923:
The wrights [of Dundee] . . . along with two other crafts, are denominated “The Pendicle Trades”, to distinguish them from those that are regularly incorporated.Sc. 1912 Lumsden & Aitken Hammermen of Gsw. 20:
When used with reference to a trade, it [pendicle] means one of the subordinate trades embraced in a craft, e.g. the making of clasps for books, being “ane pendicle of the Hammermen Trade”. . . . When used with reference to a member, it means a non-operative member, i.e. one who has been admitted without making an essay, and cannot therefore practice the trade nor bear office, but may simply enjoy, if need be, the charity of the craft.