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Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1971 (SND Vol. VIII). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

SLIPE, n.¹, v.¹ Also slyp(e), slip. [sləip]

I. n. 1. A wooden platform or drag without wheels used for moving heavy or cumbersome loads, of stones, hay, peat, etc., over difficult or rough places, a kind of sledge (Lth., Cld. 1825 Jam., slyp(e); Uls. 1880 Patterson Gl.; m. and s.Sc. 1970). Also in n.Eng. dial.; specif. in mining: a curved wooden box on iron runners for taking coal away from the cutting-face (Lth. 1842 Children in Mines Report II. 95, 1886 J. Barrowman Mining Terms 62). Combs. slipe-car, id., slype-draught, the load transported by a slipe.Sc. 1712 Fountainhall Decisions II. 755:
The way of importing ale is upon sleds and stypes [sic], whereon the brewers put two nine gallon trees.Sc. 1749 Session Papers, Petition J. Kincaid (4 Dec.) 3:
Above 1000 Slype-draught of Stones.em.Sc. 1794 W. Marshall Agric. Cent. Highl. 34:
An implement still more rude and simple than the Highland plow is the sliding cart, or “slipe”; which, for the works of harvest, is now in common use. It is formed of two long poles, framed together shaft-wise. The smaller ends are fastened to the hames, in the manner of other shafts, the larger ends sliding upon the ground.Slg. 1842 Children in Mines Report II. 479:
My employment . . . is to fill a bogie, or slype, with 2½ to 3 cwt. of coal.Fif. 1904 Dundee Advertiser (15 Aug.) 6:
The hay ‘slipes' or ‘slids' for shifting the coles or ricks to the shed.Uls. 1951 E. E. Evans Mourne Country 132:
The horse-drawn slipe is sometimes used for carrying turf.Gall. 1955 Quest No. 20. 13:
The stones were carried on hand-barrows, and on slypes where the ground was suitable for horses.ne.Sc. 1957 Abd. Press & Jnl. (4 Oct.):
The slipe proper, however, was a strongly built sledge with concave runners shod with iron used for the conveyance of logs crosscut in the woods to loading places.Ayr. 1992 Sheila Douglas ed. The Sang's the Thing: Voices from Lowland Scotland 38:
In these days it was horse work on farms, and they used tae mak the rucks in the hayfield an tak them intae the farm steading on a ruck lifter or a slipe, as we caaed it in Ayrshire. There was a ratchet and a pulley wheel at the front an ye took a rope roon either side o' the ruck and cleeked it in at the back an ye winched it up ontae the ruck lifter. I remember driving these rucks back.

2. A rail or wooden runner by which barrels or the like are unloaded from a lorry (wm.Sc., Rxb. 1970).

II. v. tr. To transport by means of a drag or sledge, to haul (a load) on a slipe (Uls. 1880 Patterson Gl.; Sc. 1948 Country Life (8 Oct.); m.Lth., Dmf., Uls. 1970), to drag, in gen.; in Mining: to transport (coal) by means of a slipe; intr. “to move freely, as any weighty body which is dragged through a mire” (Slk. 1825 Jam.). Deriv. sliper, slyper, one who transports by means of a slipe, the driver of a slipe.Sc. 1702 Records Conv. Burghs (1880) 328:
Fees and fraughts of the mettsters, inland skippers, slypers.Lth. 1842 Children in Mines Report II. 180, 453:
Sometimes I have to slype 100 to 300 fathoms. . . . Slyping is dragging with harness over shoulders and back.em.Sc. 1926 H. Hendry Poems 96:
Men wha could grab ye, head and heel, And slype ye to the Muckle Deil.m.Lth. 1935:
I was slypin stanes on the hill for the dyker.