Dictionaries of the Scots Language

The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL) (Scots: Dictionars o the Scots Leid, Scottish Gaelic: Faclairean na h-Albais) is an online Scots–English dictionary platform managed by the Scottish lexicographic body now called Dictionaries of the Scots Language SCIO. Freely available via the Internet, the DSL resource makes available the two major historical dictionaries of the Scots language:

• Scottish National Dictionary (SND), originally published in 10 volumes between 1931 and 1976.
• Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST), originally published in 12 volumes between 1931 and 2002.

DOST contains information about Older Scots words in use from the 12th century to 1700 (Early and Middle Scots). The SND contains information about Scots words in use from 1700 to the 1970s (Modern Scots). DSL brings together the contents of these 22 volumes to provide comprehensive coverage of vocabulary throughout the history of Scots. The DSL website can be used to access both dictionaries, which together contain more than 78,500 entries and 750,000 illustrative citations.

SND's Bibliography and DOST's Register of Titles have also been digitised and can be searched in the same way as the dictionaries' A-Z content. A new SND supplement was added to DSL in 2005, covering material up to that date.