Scotch mist

English

WOTD – 16 March 2016

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Noun

Morning mist at Whytbank Farm in Clovenfords in the Scottish Borders, United Kingdom

Scotch mist (countable and uncountable, plural Scotch mists)

1. (UK) A cold and penetrating mist, verging on rain.
2. (UK, dialect, chiefly Lancashire and Yorkshire, idiomatic) Something that is hard to find or does not exist.
   1. (World War II) Something imaginary, nonexistant, or overlooked.
   • 1945, Eric H Partridge, “Words Get Their Wings”, in College English‎^[1], volume 7, number 1, page 29:

     Scotch mist, the R.A.F. term for something imaginary. […] The joke of it is that Scotch mist is as wetting as English rain.

3. A drink of Scotch whisky served with ice and lemon peel.
4. The perennial flowering plant Galium sylvaticum.

   Synonym: wood bedstraw

Translations

A cold penetrating mist verging on rain

• Estonian: uduvihm
• Finnish: vihma (fi)
• Irish: ceobháisteach f
• Maori: tūkōrehu
• Scottish Gaelic: ceò silteach m
• Welsh: smwc m, smwclaw m

Galium sylvaticum

• French: gaillet des bois m
• German: Wald-Labkraut n
• Polish: przytulia leśna m