Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A Saxon; an Englishman: a general name applied by the Scottish Highlanders of the British Isles to persons of Saxon race.
Wiktionary
- n. An English person; also a lowland Scot.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A Saxon; an Englishman; a Lowlander.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the Scots' term for an English person
Examples
“If like me you you're a sassenach who has never heard of Robin Jenkins (1912 - 2005) then hie thee oot there and discover because I can't recommend him highly enough.”
“Itz reely messin usns arownd, innit? ratsnfratsnmumble sassenach bas… erm, prollee nawt teh best thyme to bee teechin yu skawtish cursees.”
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“As far as I can make out He meant You can't have those jobs because Youre a bunch of useless, unskilled sassenach baboons, or something like that.”
“At this moment a vast rumbling was heard in the corridor outside, in some language Alec didn't know, and of which he could only distinguish the word sassenach.”
The Life of the World to Come
“This sassenach is threatening to murder me, Lieutenant," complained”
Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants or, Handling Their First Real Commands
“Wait till I get the sassenach into the annals of Tageruach, the hagiographer; I'll give him enough of the”
“Believe me ... they'd welcome the Skinnys more than a sassenach!!”
“The taxi driver who takes us to the restaurant greets her as an old friend, and relates a long and (to my sassenach ears) impenetrable story about some local gangsters.”
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“Killing English by the 100's at the battle of the Little Bannock Burn was one of the happiest times of my life, oh I love ta kill the sassenach, and the Jap and the German, Americans and any wog also.”
“As could be said about the SNP except they only hate the sassenach so thats ok.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘sassenach’.
nycanthro Any time I've heard this word uttered, it was as a playful insult suggesting that a person of English (i.e., non-Celtic) extraction was somehow 'lesser than'. I've always found it weird how sometimes a word for what a person is, can be transformed into an epithet by mere tone or context without needing to be qualified by an adjective. For example, "Jew," "goy," and, ever increasingly, "American." LOL. Mar 2, 2009
chained_bear I've seen it in novels and stuff spelled Sassenach. Not that that makes it correct. Feb 27, 2009
bilby Oh Foxy, dear Foxy, slaverin' wid glee,
You can't trap a bilby by etta-molla-gee-
whiz Feb 27, 2009
sionnach For bilby if you press that button
you get a ton
o nutton. Feb 27, 2009
bilby Hot Tip! The third link from the left (brown icon) under the word does a search at the Online Etymological Dictionary. Which in this case sez:
Gaelic for "English person," 1771, Sassenaugh, lit. "Saxon," from L. Saxones, from a Gmc. source (cf. O.E. Seaxe "the Saxons"). The modern form of the word was established c.1814 by Sir Walter Scott, from Scot. Sasunnoch, Ir. Sasanach, Welsh Seisnig. Feb 27, 2009
sionnach Well, I can confirm that the Irish word for someone from England is "Sasanach", so it's entirely plausible that the Scots Gaelic word is "Sassenach". "Sassenach" would not be an admissible spelling in Irish Gaelic because there is a rule that requires vowels on either side of a consonant to be of the same type, broad (a, o, u) or slender (i, e). Feb 27, 2009
nycanthro This is more of a Scottish Gaelic or Irish word. I think it comes from their word for "Saxon". Can someone confirm this? My Googling finger has gang agley. Ta. Feb 27, 2009
garyth123 it was also formerly applied by Highlanders to (non-Gaelic-speaking) Lowlanders. (Wikipedia) Dec 28, 2008