Etymologies
- From medieval Scots gaberlunȝie. Gaelic gabair talker + lunndair idler. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“A gaberlunzie is a license to beg, Sassenach," Jamie explained.”
“-- except snow in winter, and -- well -- a little in summer just sometimes, and a 'gaberlunzie' or two stalking about here and there, if ye may call them dangerous.”
“-except snow in winter, and--well--a little in summer just sometimes, and a 'gaberlunzie' or two stalking about here and there, if ye may call them dangerous.”
“Better say naething about the laird, my man, and tell me instead, what sort of a chap ye are that are sae ready to cleik in with an auld gaberlunzie fiddler?”
“But you forget that the affront descended like a benediction into the pouch of the old gaberlunzie, who overflowed in blessings upon the generous donor — long ere he would have thanked thee, Darsie, for thy barren veneration of his beard and his bearing.”
“Latterly, Nicholson assumed the character of a gaberlunzie; he played at merrymakings on his bagpipes, for snuff and whisky.”
The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century
“Page 237 collected some few men's garments for the gaberlunzie who owns the flock.”
“Before I could answer the poor gaberlunzie spoke up and said: "Oh, yes; she stood for these," waving his hand over the thin little objects.”
“Nobody ever found the place out except an old gaberlunzie, and I gave him tuppence not to tell. ”
“My estate there was but a small one, and was forfeited thirty years ago; so unless I become a gaberlunzie and sit on the steps of St. Andrews asking for alms, I don't see how we should get porridge, to say nothing of anything else.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gaberlunzie’.
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Nincompoopery
Words that clatter and tumble
nincompoop, pettyfoggery, gaberlunzie, cattywampus, weisenheimer, katzenjammer, hecklephone, loblolly, carriwitchet, flibbertyjibbet, hornswoggle, thimblerigger and 161 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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scots words
gowk, wellkenspeckled, dowie, crivvens, clashmaclavers, kludgie, perjink, puddock, well-kenspeckled, gaberlunzie, wheesht, thrawn and 65 more...
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The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Mak...
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
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ktrey's wordlist
Words that I like.
Many may be lexicographically impotent due to a lack of citations and definition. Hopefully I'll be able to rectify this eventually.velleity, dispositive, bloviate, bibulous, fungible, concupiscence, avuncular, carnaptious, thrawn, hypocoristic, diegesis, lagniappe and 928 more...
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Name-Calling for Fun and Profit
I figured out the thing all these terms have in common, besides that they can be used as insults. They all crack me up.
drip, yahoo, dweeb, nimrod, wanker, nincompoop, weasel, skank, fussbudget, dink, twit, guttersnipe and 125 more...
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C. S. Bird – Grandiloquent Dictionary
All the words from the Grandiloquent Dictionary.
946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings.
More in...abacinate, abcedarian, abderian, ablegate, abligurition, ablutophobia, abnormous, acarophobia, acathasia, accipitrine, accidia, accubitus and 2690 more...
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Interesting Scrabble words
Interesting words worth @ least 15 points.
smoochy, zareba, hyphal, djellaba, cloque, pyxidium, qindarka, squiffy, howbeit, chthonic, quinta, azimuthal and 262 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. I
hobbledehoy, absquatulate, chthonic, prolix, ululate, internecine, verisimilitude, animadversion, concupiscence, vertiginous, cucullate, lucubrate and 1554 more...
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EN - funny (single) words
"Fornication" is not equal to "formication".
Words with funny meaning, spelling or both.biffy, bibcock, barratry, bastinado, bezonian, bibliobibuli, bodewash, boeotian, boondoggle, borborygmic, bosky, brobdingnagian and 729 more...
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rivets's Words
epopt, bifurcated, ptilota, serendipity, philprogenitive, cardoon, scorzonera, salsify, valetudinarianism, capercailie, hornpipe, strathspey and 52 more...
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Ooooh, burn!
Obscure insults
dotard, nescient, goatsucker, scrofulous, faineant, pinguid, milquetoast, sleazo, varlet, jollux, rixatrix, sciolist and 46 more...
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Rare words
Rare words I've come across in my reading.
hortative, tyrophillia, gowpen, parapet, alphamegamia, xerophagy, pyknic, cosmothetic, misarchist, conventicle, equinophobia, abderian and 16 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gaberlunzie.
chained_bear "At one point, Jamie jabbed a thumb at the rectangular bits of lead that adorned Munro's strap.
'Gone official, have ye?' he asked. 'Or is that just for when the game is scarce?' Munro bobbed his head and nodded like a jack-in-the-box.
'What are they?' I asked curiously.
'Gaberlunzies.'
'Oh, to be sure,' I said. 'Pardon my asking.'
'A gaberlunzie is a license to beg, Sassenach,' Jamie explained. 'It's good within the borders of the parish, and only on the one day a week when begging's allowed. Each parish has its own, so the beggars from one parish canna take overmuch advantage of the charity of the next.'"
—Diana Gabaldon, Outlander (NY: Delacorte Press, 1991), 325–326 Jan 2, 2010
whichbe A beggar. A good Scots word this, of the medieval period, though sadly nobody has much idea where it comes from. The first part looks as though it might have something to do with gaberdine, originally a garment worn by a pilgrim. This may well be, because another name for a gaberlunzie in medieval times was bluegown. Taken from the colour of his dress, this was the name in medieval Scotland for a person who was a king's licensed beggar or beadsman, a person who was paid to pray for the souls of others by telling his beads. (Beadsman comes from the original meaning of bead, a prayer; it was only later that it took on its modern sense through association with the rosary.)
You will find it many times in Scots literature, especially in the old ballad The Gaberlunzie Man and in James Ballantine's story The Gaberlunzie's Wallet. But if it's Scots we're after, we had best turn to Sir Walter Scott. He doesn't fail, and here it is in Redgauntlet: ìBetter say naething about the laird, my man, and tell me instead, what sort of a chap ye are that are sae ready to cleik in with an auld gaberlunzie fiddler?î (Cleik, a version of cleek, from a noun meaning a hook, so to link oneself with somebody.) It's also in several other of Scott's books, so he probably must be given the credit of having popularised it to readers outside Scotland.
(from World Wide Words) May 22, 2008
chained_bear another usage on thrawn Mar 20, 2008
chained_bear "'Davy Hume was of your opinion,' said Graham. 'I mean with regard to Monsieur Rosseau. He found him to be little more than a crackit gaberlunzie.'"
--Patrick O'Brian, Treason's Harbour, 11 Feb 15, 2008