v1.0
Published 01/10/24
driog m. [d̪̥ɾʲiɡ̊], gen. drioga -[ə], ‘drop; tear; (AFB˄) strippings, the last milk drawn at a milking’ is derived by MacBain (1896 and 1911: ‘seemingly’) from ON dregg f. ‘dregs’ (so Henderson (1910, 113), so de Vries (1962)); MacLennan (1925) compares ON dregg ‘lees’, although Stewart (2004, 409) interprets this as meaning ‘derived from’; McDonald (2009, 349–50) considers the derivation likely. ON dregg sg., however, has the sense ‘yeast’; dreggjar pl. has the sense ‘dregs’ (NO).
McDonald (ibid.) compares Ir. driog ‘to distil’ with Ir. dríodar m. ‘lees, dregs’ and, on the assumption that eDIL’s dríodar is Old Irish, concludes that the former (which is not cited in eDIL˄) is later.
SG driog and the verb driog ‘to drop, distill’ are probably from Scots dreg [drɛg], [dreg], as a substantive ‘the refuse of malt from the still; a drop of any liquid’, as a verb ‘to strip a cow’ (SND˄), itself probably from Old Norse via MEng. dreg (OED˄).
For the vocalism, cf. Scots brek > SG brìg, q.v.
Ir. driog f. ‘droplet’ and the verb driog are conceivably loans from either Scots or Scottish Gaelic, or both. For SG driog in the extended sense ‘tear’, cf. SG deur ‘tear; drop’ (EG dér ‘idem’): An d’ fhuair thu deur? Cha d’ fhuair driog (≈Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄, s.v. driog: Killearn) ‘Did you get a drop? Not a drop.’
eDIL’s dríodar ‘dregs, lees, refuse’ is in fact a modern Irish word, considered to be of unknown origin (Vendryes 1996). Lhuyd (1707) lists driodar (without lengthmark) ‘goar [sic] or corrupt matter also dregs, lees or sediment’, and this may well have been adopted by Shaw (1780), hence SG driodar ‘dregs, lees, gore, corrupt matter’, so Armstrong (1825) and HSS (1828, after Lhuyd). Although MacBain (≈ibid.) suggests SG driodar and Ir. dríodar go back to ‘*driddo, *dṛd-do-, root der (Eng. tear), cf. Scots driddle’, Ir. dríodar may ultimately go back to MEng. drit ‘ordure, unclean matter’, while SG driodar, if not a ghost word, may go back to Scots drit (Marwick 1929), dirt (SND˄) ‘dirt, excrement; a term of abuse’.
Ir. driodar ‘gore’ , with a short stressed vowel (cf. Dinneen 1947, s.v. driodar ‘hardened or clotted portions of a liquid mixed with the thinner; broken or curdled milk; gore, corrupt matter’), is distinct from dríodar ‘dregs etc.’, with a long stressed vowel, although both may ultimately be reflexes of Middle English: contrast MEng. drit sb. with MEng. drīten vb.
Despite the doubt over the status of SG driodar, Scots drit may well lie behind expressions such as SG driod-fhortan 'misfortune’ (with fortan ‘fortune’, < Lat. fortūna (MacBain ibid.)) and driodabag ‘misfortune’ (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄: Skye).