ONlwSG

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sgòd m. [s̪kɔːd̪̥], gen. sgòid [s̪kɔːd̥ʲ], ‘the corner of a sail (the after-clew); 

Cf. Mac Farlan 1795: scòd; MacFarlane 1815; Armstrong 1825; Dwelly 1911; MacLeod 2004, 26; AFB^˄: /sgɔːd/.

the sheet or rope attached to the clew; 

Shaw 1780: scod; Armstrong 1825; HSS 1828; M^cAlpine 1832: sgod [skôd] [where [ô] = [oː], cf. his example sgòd an t-siùil thoisich ‘the foresail sail’]; Dwelly 1911; Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: Eriskay, also sgòthd, corrected to sgòd, South Uist; AFB^˄: /sgɔːd/. Note the idiom fhuair mi air sgòd e [I got it inadvertently] (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄, s.v. sgòd: Harris), which may also belong here.

a sail; 

Dieckhoff 1932: sgod [sgòːd]: ‘not a common word in Glengarry’. But cf. the prepositional phrase fo sgòd ‘under sail’ (AFB^˄).

the corner of a cloth or garment, lappet, 

Shaw 1780: scod; Armstrong 1825; HSS 1828; M^cAlpine 1832: sgod [skôd]; Dwelly 1911; AFB^˄: /sgɔːd/.

and, by extension, a piece of cloth or clothing, 

McDonald 1972.

a piece of torn-off cloth, rag 

AFB^˄: /sgɔːd/.

’ is derived from ON skaut nt. ‘the corner or edge of a piece of cloth; the corner of a sail or the attached rope used to regulate the sail’s position relative to the wind’ (cf. NO), 

Cameron 1894, 642; Craigie 1894, 161; MacBain 1896 and 1911; Henderson 1910, 216 (so also de Vries 1962); Bugge 1912, 298; MacLennan 1925 (so also Stewart 2004, 413); Thomson 1983d, 90, although no Old Norse form is quoted; Cox 1991, 492; 2002a, 297.2358; 2022, 175–76, §63; and McDonald 2009, 399.

so also Ir. scód ‘sheet (rope) and, by extension, free scope, free rein’ (Ó Dónaill 1977) 

Craigie 1894, 161; Bugge 1912, 298; Pokorny 1921, 120; Bergin 1943, 237: Ir. sgód [sic]; Greene 1976, 79; 1978, 121; Mac Mathúna 2001, 76, citing Greene 1976, 70 [leg. 79]; and McDonald 2009, 399.

and EG scót, scód ‘sheet, sail’ (eDIL^˄).

Stokes 1892, 123; Marstrander 1910, 401: EG scōti [?abstracted from EG línscó(i)ti, see ‍fn 11, below]; Marstrander 1915a, 33, 43, 71, 98 (so also de Vries 1962); eDIL^˄; Schulze-Thulin 1996, 108; and McDonald 2009, 399.

The phonetic development is regular; for ON au [ɔu] > SG [ɔː], cf. CSc. *Hraun-ø̨y ‘(the) boulder-pile island, (the) stony island’ > SG Rònaigh [ˈᵲɔ̃ːnaj] (Cox 2022, 175–76, §63 

For the name Rònaigh more generally, see ibid. 847–56.

). 

Contrast ON lín-skauti m. ‘linen cloth’ which Marstrander (1915a, 33–34 (with a synopsis in French in Sommerfelt 1922, 189), so also McDonald 2009, 382) claims yields EG línscóit ‘linen cloth or sheet, shroud’, although eDIL^˄ lists línscóit as a compound of EG lín ‘linen, cloth, thread etc.’ (cognate with ON lín).

Derivatives: SG sgòid (Shaw 1780: sgoid; Armstrong 1825; HSS 1828; Dwelly 1911), a normalised dative feminine form of sgòd; the diminutive form sgòdan (Shaw 1780: scodan; Armstrong 1825; HSS 1828; Dwelly 1911; Bugge 1912, 298: scodan; McDonald 1972; AFB^˄), with the suffix -an; 

O’Reilly’s (1817) Ir. scodan [sic] (so also Bugge 1912, 298) may be adopted from Scottish Gaelic dictionaries and may effectively be a ghost word in Irish. For SG sgòdan, contrast the form sgòidean, with a palatal medial, in the sense ‘sail-corner or sail-like place’ in the Lewis place-names Geodha an Sgòidein and Rubha an Sgòidein ‘the cove of and the promontory of the sgòidean’ NB231468 (Cox 2002a, 297.2358 and 258–59.3319).

the open compounds sgòd-deiridh ‘sgòd, the after-clew of a sail’ (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄, without hyphen; AFB^˄) and sgòd-toisich ‘luff, the forward edge of a sail’ (MacLeod 2004, 26; Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄, without hyphen; AFB^˄); the closed compound lethsgod 

From SG leth ‘half’ + sgòd, with full stress falling upon the initial syllable of the compound.

(Ros 1917, 87–89: in the sense ‘handicap’; McDonald 1972, s.v. leasgodach: leasgod, leasgad: ‘there is said to be leasgad anns an aodach [a leasgad in the cloth] when the cloth is of unequal width’); the adjectives sgòdach (HSS 1828; Dwelly 1911; AFB^˄) and lethsgodach ‘half-clad’ (McDonald 1972: leasgodach, lethsgodach, Eriskay; AFB^˄: ‘shabby; handicapped’, written leth-sgòdach, but transcribed /Lʲesgɔdəx/, i.e. with initial-syllable stress), with the suffix -ach; sgòdadh ‘reefing’ (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: Harris), with the verbal noun suffix -adh; and sgòdalachd ‘an article left in a shabby state; a shabby state’ (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: Scalpay; AFB^˄), for the final of which perhaps compare SG fìneal(t)achd ‘fineness, elegance’, òrdalachd ‘orderliness’.