Reset
December 13th 2025
The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) outline several meanings for reset, including “to receive and keep, usually for the purpose of reselling, stolen goods”. A resetter is someone who receives stolen goods.
Examples of this sense date back as far as the 14th century, as in the following from the Cartulary of Cambuskenneth (1389): “Ten oxin … wrangusly tane … and ȝit with the foresaid William resettit and haldin”.
[Ten oxen … were wrongly taken … and have been received and held in the possession of the previously mentioned William.]
In 1512, we find a warning against reset within the Edinburgh Burgh Records: “that na nychtbouris … tak upoun hand to resaue or resaitt ony vthers suspect geir”.
[That no resident … attempt to receive suspicious items from another person.]
When a resetter was caught, they were held in very low regard, as this scolding from the Justiciary Cases in 1867 shows: “You did … wickedly and feloniously, reset and receive the gold or other metal watch … well knowing the same to have been taken by robbery, or to have been stolen”.
A century later, the Dumfries and Galloway Standard reported in February 1967 on the crime of “resetting 36 bottles of whisky or other spirits, which had been appropriated by theft”.
Stories of reset offences frequently appear in Scottish newspapers. In August 2025, the Paisley Daily Express reported that two people had “admitted a charge of reset by using [a] stolen bank card” at various shops in Paisley.
Dictionaries of the Scots Language would like to thank Bob Dewar for illustrating our Scots Word of the Week feature.
