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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII). Includes material from the 1976 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

†PINER, n. Also pyn(n)er, pynour, poiner. A labourer, specif. a mason's labourer (Cai. 1903 E.D.D.; Rs.¹ 1929); a man who cuts and prepares peat for fuel, a peat-futherer (Inv. 1825 Jam.; Bnff. 1866 Gregor D. Bnff. 126); in Aberdeen specif. applied to a member of a society of porters or stevedores instituted in 1498 and still existing as the Society of Shore Porters, see s.v. Shore. [′pəinər]Inv. 1725 Inv. T.C. Minutes MS.:
They ordain the said Butts and the others loose earth to be spread on the said plain by pyners to be employed by the Treasurer and he to pay them for their labour.Ork. 1728 W. Mackintosh Curious Incidents (1892) 183:
To ale to the wrights and smiths and officers making the gallows, and the pynners burying the dead, £4 2s.Sth. 1734 A. Mackay Bk. Mackay (1906) 184:
The wages of a labourer or “piner” was at the rate of “1/- and 2 pecks meal, weekly, with 2/- to buy shoes.”Inv. 1806 Session Papers, Duff v. Magistrates Inv. (7 April 1808) Proof 16:
The people she saw . . . were poiners or carters from Inverness.Abd. 1887 J. Bulloch Pynours 3:
Even as far back as the year 1498, when the pynours are first mentioned in the Burgh Records, it is as a body recognised by the community by the prescriptive right of “the ald louable consuetude” to intromit with all imported and exported merchandise, always under the control of the Aldermen and Council of the Burgh.

Deriv. pynorie, ? a tax or impost on goods unloaded from a ship, stevedore dues. Per. 1746 R. S. Fittis Gleanings (1876) 209:
Alexr. Buchan, Milner, possessor of the Pynories and Pecks, and Anchorage and Cess bolls.