Scots Language Centre

WINNOCK n window

Winnock is a variant of window from the Old Norse ‘vindauga’ meaning ‘wind-eye’. This type of variation is rare but also gives us the Scots ‘elbuck, alongside English ‘elbow’. Window is found in Older Scots in quotations from the late fourteenth century and winnock makes its earliest recorded appearance about a century later. Many quotations in A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue are...