Scots word of the day: Dicht

Published on 29/01/2013 17:00

Dicht is a Scots word that means to wipe, usually referring to personal grooming of some kind.

There are ocassional references to the term in literature. Sheena Blackhall points out “lugs [that] cud dae wi a dicht” in The Singing Bird (2000),

The term also has roots in Ireland, where Ulster poet Thomas Given - part of a band of poets who mixed Irish and Scottish slang and inflections into their verses in the 18th and 19th centuries - wrote in a poem called A Song for February:

“The blackbird keeks oot frae the fog at the broo,

Gees his neb a bit dicht on a stane”