Scotsman

How to spell scotsman

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce scotsman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does scotsman mean?

1. nounA man who is from Scotland or of Scottish descent.

Scotsman in a sentence

• The proud scotsman wore his clan tartan to the wedding.

• Every scotsman at the reunion traced his family back to the Highlands.

Where does scotsman come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word joins Scots, an older possessive or connective form of Scot, with the everyday noun man. The element Scot reaches back to the Late Latin Scottus, a name the Romans applied to a people of Ireland and later to the Gaelic settlers who crossed into the land that took their name, Scotland. The Old English form Scottas was used for these peoples long before the modern nation existed, so the word is genuinely ancient in English. The linking -s- in the middle is a fossilised genitive, much as it is in 'craftsman' or 'huntsman', literally meaning 'a man of the Scots'. That tucked-away s is the usual spelling trap: writers are tempted to drop it and write 'Scotman', or to double letters that are not there. The companion form for a woman, Scotswoman, keeps the same -s- joint.

How the word is built

• Scots (possessive/connective form of Scot, a person from Scotland)
• man