Fouth n. abundance

As I was out walking the dog the other day, the word fouth kept coming into my mind. In the waist-high vegetation, there was that almost threatening overabundance that the English metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell describes in his poem The Garden: “Stumbling on melons as I pass, Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass”. Fouth, or plenty, was everywhere I looked. There was a fouth of butterflies, birds, grass and flowers beyond description. Like Gavin Douglas I had to admit “For that I the fowth of language want”.

Fouth belongs to that select group of nouns formed from adjectives by the addition of ‘-th’. So, from broad we get breadth, from wide, width, from deep, depth, from long, length from strong, strength and from true, truth. So what does fouth come from? Fouth and an older alternative form, fulth, clearly comes from the adjective which appears in English and in some Scots texts as full, but, as is the way with many Scots words, the ‘l’ is lost to leave fu or fou.

J. Kelly’s collection of proverbs (1721) uses fouth in a weather prediction: “When the Wind is in the South, Rain will be fouth”. So far as weather prognostications go, under usual Scottish weather conditions rain is predictably fouth with the wind in any airt.

We also find fouth in Bellenden’s translation of Boece’s Chronicles of Scotland (1531), lamenting a bygone time of superior education: “Sic fouth of virtew and letteris multiplyit in thay dayis”. We can only hope that the new Curriculum for Excellence will bring back those days to Scottish schools.

I leave you with a toast used at Orkney weddings. May I wish you “A fouth o’ girse (grass) an’ a fouth o’ corn, A fu’ cog (wooden container) an’ frothing horn”.

Scots Word of the Week is written by Chris Robinson of Scottish Language Dictionaries.

This week's Word is spoken by Dr Dauvit Horsbroch.

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