v1.0
Published 01/10/24
busg vb [b̥u̟s̪k], [b̥us̪k] ‘to dress, adorn’, verbal noun and noun busgadh m. -[əɣ] ‘dressing, adorning; coiffure, head-dress’. Bugge (1912, 297) derives SG busg from ON búask, a reflexive form of búa ‘to prepare etc.’, while McDonald (2009, 347) considers the loan uncertain. ON búask would formally yield SG *[ˈb̥uəs̪k] or similar, but does yield Scots busk ‘(intransitive) to prepare, make ready; dress; (transitive) to equip, prepare, make ready; adorn, deck, dress up; decorate with ribbons or flags’ (SND˄), which in turn would yield SG busg regularly, and, with the addition of the common verbal noun ending -adh, busgadh, which is the position taken by MacBain (1911).
And by MacLennan (1925), but who cites the extended sense ‘to thread a fishing-hook’.
Bugge notes that ‘“to bush” is, according to Professor Marstrander, still in use in Scotch-English, f[or] i[nstance] in the proverb “a bonny bride is easily [leg. easy] bushed”
Cf. the variant a bonny bride is soon buskit (SND˄, s.v. busk II (2)).
’, but it is assumed bush and bushed are typesetting errors for busk and busked (busket), respectively. Bugge also cites Ir. busgadh, but this is from O’Reilly’s Irish dictionary (1864), who simply draws from Shaw’s Scottish Gaelic dictionary (1780).