Yes, John Muir was a Scotman, here are some of the best Scottish weather-related words which you probably won’t find in his writings from his years in Yosemite as the weather is a smitch better there.
A few Scottish Words And Phrases To Describe The Weather
OORLICH, adj., n. Of the weather: damp, chilly and unpleasant, raw, bleak, depressing
Travels in Alaska: (With Original Drawings and Photographs)
$15.49 (as of May 2, 2024 13:28 GMT -06:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)Meaning dreary, gloomy, bleak, miserable, grey, depressing, devoid of sunshine… you get the picture! The mothership of all Scottish weather words and used more times that cans of Irn-Bru are opened, it’s no shocker that ‘dreich’ was voted by Scots as the nation’s most favourite word in a government poll.
Pure Baltic
It’s absolutely (insert swear word) freezing to the point that you will probably be chitterin’ (shivering) away.
Snell
Frightfully freezing to the point that it feels like the weather is piercing your skin.
Flaggie
A muckle (large) snowflake.
A Dreich Day In Glasgow | © Rory / Flickr
Fret
Dinnae fret for a ‘fret’ is a piercingly chilly and damp mist hurtling in from the sea.
Mochie
Can be applied to those squirmy moments when clamminess cloaks you and warm, uncomfortable dampness sets in due to those horrid, humid days.
Bullet Stanes
Quite simply, hail stones.
Drookit
Totally and utterly soaked to the bone, drenched, sodden, soaking. If your clothes are ‘drookit’ then you clearly didnae hae a brolly (umbrella) or perhaps the rain was so torrential that the brolly couldn’t stop your clothes fae being drookit!
Sump
When the rain comes down with gusto and great strength.
Gloaming
That alluring and evocative twilight dusk that descends upon a place in the early hours of the evening. Dates back to the fifteenth-century in an old Scots text: ‘the glomyng of the nycht’.
Oorlich
The word ‘oorlich’, meaning undesirably damp, nippy, cold and chilly is a grand chance to accentuate the Scots ‘ich’ sound. NOT to be pronounced ‘oor-lick’!
Thank you to The Culture Trip for providing this inspiration, please visit their site for the complete list of 27 words.
John Muir is beloved in USA and Scotland.
