v1.0
Published 01/10/24
bòd m. [b̥ɔːd̪̥] ‘offer, bid at a sale, pledge, wager’ is derived by MacLennan (1925) from Scots bode, bod, comparing ON bjóða vb. ‘to offer, bid etc.’. Stewart (2004, 408) seems to interpret this as support for a derivation from Old Norse, but McDonald (2009, 342) notes that ‘the loss of the palatal [semi-]vowel ... needs to be explained’ and considers the loan unlikely. Apart from an objection on the grounds that SG bòd and ON bjóða belong to different grammatical categories, ON bjó- is certainly likely to yield SG bjò-, but the Old Norse fricative ð would not be expected to yield a stop in Scottish Gaelic (Cox 2007b); the same argument holds for a derivation from ON boð n. ‘bid, offer’, which also has a short vowel.
Rather than allocate SG bòd m. its own entry, AFB˄’s editor Michael Bauer places the sense ‘wager’ under the entry for bòt f. ‘vote’, because he is almost certain that bòd and bòt are the same word arising through alternation in spelling in the use of lengthmarks on the one hand and final p t c or b d g on the other (cf. cnòdan ~ cnòtan, rot ~ rod, spreòd ~ spr(e)ot, pleotag ~ pleodag ~ pleòdag, slaod ~ slaot, snòd ~ snòt), viewing the semantic shift as an example of ‘Gaelic English’ (i.e. English words borrowed into Gaelic with sometimes unexpected changes in meaning) (pers. comm.).
SG bot m. ‘vote’ (with a short vowel, e.g. HSS 1828), bòt f. ‘vote’ (with a long vowel, e.g. Dwelly 1911) and bhòt f. ‘vote’ (with fixed lenition, e.g. Robertson and MacDonald 2010) can all be taken as relatively recent Gaelic reflexes of modern Eng. vote (< Lat. vōtum nt. ‘promise, vow’).
On the other hand, SG bòd occurs in poems by Murchadh MacCoinnich (fl. 1650; Watson 1918, 217, line 5811: lòn : tòir : bhòd, and 314–15), by Iain Lom (c. 1665; MacKenzie 1964, 118–19, line 1530: sròn : bhòd : dheòin) and in the Turner Collection (Mac-an-Tuairneir 1813, 278) and, while Watson derives it from Lat. vōtum (the plural of which yields EG móit, móid, bóid f. ‘vow’ (eDIL˄), hence Ir. móid, SG bòid f. ‘idem’), its form and senses suggest a derivation from either Eng. bode ‘offer, bid’ (< MEng. bōd) or perhaps Scots bode, bod [bod, bɔd] ‘idem’ (SND˄) with lengthening of the vowel in Gaelic under the influence of SG bòid.