Gowpin
April 12th 2025
Defined in the Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) as, “to throb with pain, to ache violently”, gowpin is one of many Scots words describing this unpleasant sensation. In fact, D. Rorie’s Auld Doctor (1920) uses three of them in a single example: “A reg’lar, riving, ragin colic, A loupin, gowpin stoonding pain”.
DSL contains a number of twentieth-century examples of the word in use, including this one from Liz Lochhead’s 1985 translation of Moliere’s Tartuffe: “Come dork, she wis richt weak, Wi the gowpin o her sair heid and seeck at the thocht o touchin a singel bite”.
Peter Mason’s C’mon Geeze yer Patter (1987) provides an accompanying English translation: “Ma pinkie’s gowpin wi yon big skelf. My small finger is extremely painful because of the splinter embedded in it”.
There are plenty of twenty-first century examples too. Matthew Fitt uses the word in Pedro Puddock (2003): “But Pedro’s puddock leggies are pure gowpin Efter aw that intercontinental lowpin”.
In May 2016, the wrestler Grado wrote the following in the Daily Record: “My sald was amazin, my grass was looking great (although my Dad’s heid was gowpin) so I felt good in the afternnon as I headed to Greenock, where I was wrestling that night”.
Finally, a particularly notable example can be found in Len Pennie’s poem I’m no havin children which went viral online in 2020: “A’m no havin children, A’m gonnae hae weans, who’ll be gowpin and bealin when they’ve goat aches an pains”.
Dictionaries of the Scots Language would like to thank Bob Dewar for illustrating our Scots Word of the Week feature.
