v1.0
Published 01/10/24
dus m. [d̪̥u̟s̪], [d̪̥us̪], gen. duis [d̪̥u̟ʃ], [d̪̥uʃ], ‘dust; earthly remains’ is derived tentatively from ON dust or OEng. dust (< dūst) by Craigie (1894, 164); MacBain (1911) notes both SG dus and duslach, deriving them from Eng. dust.
McDonald (2009, 351) considers the derivation uncertain.
Craigie derives Ir. dus ‘dust’ from ON dust also, but the Irish word is otherwise unattested.
Marstrander (1915a, 122) considers Craigie’s reference to be in error for Ir. dos ‘bush; foam’.
A number of similar forms occur in Scottish Gaelic.
A. SG dus [d̪̥u̟s̪], [d̪̥us̪] ‘dust’
Sailm Dhaibhidh 1659, 7: 5; MacDomhnuill 1741, 48: dus eighe ‘file dust’; Shaw 1780; Mac Farlan 1795; MacFarlane 1815; Armstrong 1825: dùs [sic], gen. duis; HSS 1828; McAlpine 1832: ‘dust, smithy ashes’; MacLeod and Dewar 1839; MacEachen 1842; Dwelly 1911: ‘dust, smithy ashes, remains of animals or plants’; MacLennan 1925: [doos] ‘dust, smithy ashes’; AFB˄: /dus/.
B. SG dusal ‘dust; dustiness’
(i) dusal: HSS 1828: ‘dustiness’; MacLeod and Dewar 1839: ‘dust; dustiness’;
(ii) dùsal: in a poem by John MacCodrum (1693–1779, North Uist) (Matheson 1938, 118–19, line 1726: ‘dust’), and in Dwelly 1911: ‘dust; dustiness’, with the stressed vowel of dusal lengthened, perhaps through confusion with dùsal ‘slumber’, q.v., or, in MacCodrum’s case, in order to effect an internal rhyme with ùra.
C. SG duslach, dusrach(d)
C1. SG duslach [d̪̥u̟s̪ɫ̪əx], -[ax], -[ɔx], [d̪̥us̪ɫ̪əx] etc. ‘dust’
MacDomhnuill 1741, 7; Shaw 1780; MacFarlane 1815; Armstrong 1825: ‘dust, earth, ground’; HSS 1828; McAlpine 1832: ‘dust, miln dust’; MacLeod and Dewar 1839; MacEachen 1842; Dwelly 1911: ‘dust, earth, ground’; MacLennan 1925: ‘dust, mill dust’; Dieckhoff 1932: [dusLɐK], Glengarry; Wentworth 2003: [d̥usʟɔx], Gairloch; Mac Gill-Fhinnein 2009, 93, line 1266.
C2. SG dusrach, dusrachd [d̪̥u̟s̪ɾəx(k)] etc.
CG VI, 64: ‘dusrachd na dàmhair “the cloudiness of the rutting”, a week or ten days of cloudy weather supervening at rutting time’, with final -d -[k] on the analogy of the abstract noun suffix -achd.
D. SG duslainn, duslaing, duslann ‘dust, earth; gloomy place’
D1. SG duslainn
(i) dusluinn: Armstrong 1825: ‘dust, earth’;
(ii) duslainn: HSS 1828: ‘dust’; McAlpine 1832: [dŭs´-llėnn] ‘dust; gloomy place’; MacLeod and Dewar 1839: ‘dust’; MacEachen 1842: idem; Dwelly 1911: ‘gloomy, solitary place; dark place; dust; thicket’; misspelt duslinn in MacLennan 1925: ‘dust; dark place’; misspelt dùslainn, with a lengthmark, in HSS 1828: ‘gloomy, solitary place’, MacLeod and Dewar 1839: idem, and MacBain 1911: ‘gloomy, retired place’, perhaps on the analogy of SG dùbhlachd ‘deep winter, gloominess’ and dùbhlaidh ‘wintry, gloomy’.
D2. duslaing
(i) dusluing: HSS 1828: ‘dust’; MacLeod and Dewar 1839: idem; misspelt dusling in Shaw 1780: idem;
(ii) duslaing: Dwelly 1911: ‘gloomy, solitary place; dark place; dust; thicket’.
D3. duslann
Dwelly 1911: ‘gloomy, solitary place; dark place; dust; thicket’.
E. dust ‘dust; haze’
(i) dust: Gillies 1786, 89 (also in Matheson 1938, 68, line 987, (p. 69) ‘dust’); Wentworth 2003, s.v. ashes, dust, remains, stoor: [d̥ust], Gairloch; Watson 2022, 187: /dusd/ ‘potato manure’, Easter Ross; AFB˄: /dusd/ ‘dust’; in the Scots-influenced orthography of the Fernaig Manuscript (1688), the word is rendered (len.) ghuist;
In both Stanzas 9 and 10 of a poem by Fear na Pàirce of Strathpeffer (fl. late-16th to early-17th century). The manuscript’s editor Malcolm MacFarlane (1923, 9) translates ‘dust’ (in italics) on both occasions, as though the Scots/English rather than a Gaelic word were being used: MacFarlane was originally from Dalavich in Argyllshire and would probably have used dus and/or duslach in his own Gaelic dialect.
(ii) dusd: Dieckhoff 1932: [dusd] ‘dust’, Glengarry; Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄: tha dusd air choreiginn oirre [‘it’s hazy’], Scalpay.
Two main sources appear to lie behind the forms under A–E, above. SG dust (E) has a more northerly distribution, SG dus (A) a more southerly one; on the one hand, dust derives from Scots dust ‘dust’ and refers to ‘particles of dust’ rather than ‘the action of dusting’;
Ir. dusta m. ‘dust’, along with dustalach m. ‘haze’ and dustáil vb ‘to dust’, may go back to Eng. dust.
on the other hand, dus may have entered the Gaelic language via Scots doose, douse [dus] (as a noun) ‘a heavy blow, butt or push; thud’ and (as a verb) ‘to strike, knock, thrash’, with the sense of the Gaelic word extended from ‘the action of dusting’ to ‘particles of dust’ – this seems a more likely solution perhaps than that dus derives directly from Scots dust or is a by-form of SG dust, with final -st yielding -s on the analogy of SG a-rithis
E.g. LASID VI, 272, column 1, line 27: a rithis [ə ˈriːʃ].
(as opposed to a-rithist) ‘again etc.’, or similar. SG dusal (B) may in origin be a verbal noun formation (dus + -al
The ending is more commonly -ail, but cf. SG fuaigheal ‘sewing’.
); SG duslach (C) (or dusrach, with l ~ r alternation) seems to consist of dus + the suffix -lach,
Probably in a collective sense; cf. Calder 1972, 185.
with duslach alternating with duslainn/duslann
Cf. SG boglach ~ boglainn ‘marsh’ and trealaich ~ trealainn ‘lumber’.
(D) and with duslainn itself alternating with duslaing.
Cf. SG farsaing ~ farsainn ‘wide’, with a final in -[kʲ] or -[ɲ̪], according to dialect.
Derivatives: (the following are adjectives meaning ‘dusty’, unless otherwise indicated: (A–B) dusach (Dwelly 1911: ‘dusty, earthy, earthlike’), dusal (Shaw 1780), dusail (HSS 1828; McAlpine 1832, s.v. duslachail; MacLeod and Dewar 1839; Dwelly 1911: ‘dusty, earthy, earthlike’) and duslach (Mac Farlan 1795); (C) duslachail (MacFarlane 1815; Armstrong 1825; HSS 1828; McAlpine 1832; MacLeod and Dewar 1839; MacEachen 1842; Dwelly 1911: ‘dusty, earthlike, like earth’; MacLennan 1925); (D) duslainneach (HSS 1828: ‘gloomy’; MacLeod and Dewar 1839: dùslainneach ‘idem’; MacEachen 1842; Dwelly 1911: ‘bushy’), dusluinneach (Armstrong 1825: ‘dusty, earthlike, terrestrial, made of earth; lonely, deserted’), dusluingeach and duslannach (Dwelly 1911: ‘bushy’); (E) dustach (MacEachen 1842; Dwelly 1911: ‘see dusail’; Wentworth 2003, s.v. dusty: Gairloch), dusdach (Dieckhoff 1932: [dusdɐK], Glengarry; Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄: Scalpay), dustail (MacEachen 1842; Dwelly 1911: ‘see dusail’), dustaidh (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄: [d̪u̟st̪i] ‘hazy’, Skye), plus the verb dust (Wentworth 2003, s.v. dust: Gairloch) and the verbal noun dustadh (Dwelly 1911: ‘Gaelic form of dusting’; Wentworth 2003, s.v. dust vb, dusting: Gairloch; AFB˄: ‘dusting’).