The guide to 100 Scots words from Outlander that has won praise from hit series author Diana Gabaldon

The Dictionaries of the Scots Language has released its ode to Outlander.

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon has given her backing to Scots language experts who have compiled 100 Scots words, their meaning and origin used in the hit book and television series.

Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) has released its new online publication, 100 Scots Words from Outlander, following a spike in searches on its website for entries relating to the story.

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon at Falkland Palace. Picture: Alison Campsie | Alison Campsie

From wheest to wean to teuchter, tawse and stramash - with many lesser-known Scots words also included - each entry is linked back to its reference in Ms Gabaldon’s work with a broader historical narrative offered for its origin and usage.

Rhona Alcorn, chief executive of the Dictionaries of Scots language, said: “Some years ago, we observed significant spikes in searches for words that don’t usually appear in our top word searches. It became clear these were Scots words featured in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander book series, so we asked a small group of readers to read the books and excerpt all the Scots words on our behalf.

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“Their word lists revealed the extensive research Diana had clearly done into the Scots of her novels’ historical era. One hundred of those words form the basis of this new publication.

“We are very grateful for the warm encouragement and support of Diana Gabaldon, who has provided a foreword to 100 Scots Words from Outlander. We are also grateful to her agent and publishers for their support and permission to reproduce lines from the Outlander series of books.”

Other lesser-known Scots words included in the list include clishmaclaver - gossip or chatter - which appears in Ms Gabaldon’s second book, Dragonfly in Amber.

A blatherskite - a babbler or foolish person - is used in An Echo in the Bone, while collieshangie - a noisy dispute - appears in Voyager, the third Outlander book.

Ms Gabaldon, in her foreword to the online publication, said: “Now, the form of Scots that I use in Outlander is not any kind of a direct approximation; it’s an adaptation, or as you might say, an evocation.

“I relied mostly on the characteristic sentence structure, with the occasional idiom or striking word, and gave it a very light accent that used an easy eye-spelling, but no apostrophes.”

Ms Gabaldon said she also read a number of “really horrible examples” of people trying to write “a Sottish accent”, which were mostly from historical romance novels set in Scotland.

On vocabulary, Ms Gabaldon said she “culled a number of fascinating Scots words” from reading material, but also from an “expanding group of acquaintances”.

Ms Gabaldon added: “I was also given a number of great Scots words by friends who had come across them. I did already know that ‘skulduggery’ goes back to a Scottish word (skulduddery), for instance, but the friend who offered me that also presented me with ‘mool’, this being described as ‘dirt from or intended for a grave.”

Ms Gabaldon said she wanted, naturally, to “give a sense of authenticity” to the way her characters spoke with Gaelic words and expressions also used through the Outlander story.

She said she hoped the publication from 100 Words from Outlander would “further interest in the language and people and land of Scotland”.