Scots

How to spell scots

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce scots

What does scots mean?

1. adjectiveBelonging to or characteristic of Scotland, its people, or its language.
2. nounThe Germanic language or dialect spoken in Lowland Scotland, distinct from Scottish Gaelic.
3. nounThe people of Scotland, considered collectively.

Scots in a sentence

• adjective

  The contract was drafted under scots law rather than English law.

• noun

  The poem was written in scots rather than standard English.

• noun

  The scots have a long tradition of engineering and invention.

• adjective

  A row of tall scots pine lined the estate road.

• noun

  Many words in modern scots survive from older Northern English.

• noun

  History records that the scots resisted the invasion for years.

Where does scots come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Late Latin Scottus and its plural Scotti, a name the Romans and early medieval writers used for the Gaelic-speaking raiders who crossed from Ireland into what is now Scotland. The original people called Scotti were in fact Irish, and only over the centuries did the label settle on the inhabitants of the northern kingdom that took its name from them. Old English borrowed the term as Scottas, and the modern plural and adjective both grew out of that. The form 'Scots' came to mean both the people of Scotland collectively and, used adjectivally, anything belonging to that nation, as in Scots law or Scots pine. Curiously, the unrelated word 'scot' meaning a tax or share of expenses (the source of 'scot-free') comes from a quite different Old Norse root, skot, meaning a contribution, so the two senses only look alike on the page.

How the word is built

• Scot (from Late Latin Scottus, a Gael)
• -s (plural / collective)