Lost Word Of The Day (82)

It is a long time since I have read any of the works of Sir Walter Scott but I would always have considered him an unlikely source of a Romany word but in Heart of Midlothian (1818) and Fortunes of Nigel (1826) we find one. Chury and its variant cheery was a Welsh Romany word for a knife, probably derived from the Hindi word chhuri.  

In the earlier novel he wrote “I have not forgot that you planked a chury, which helped me through the bars of the Castle of York”, while in Fortunes of Nigel we find “chalk him across the peepers with your cheery”. Scott’s use of a word of Romany origin astounded early critics, A McCormick noting in Tinkler-Gypsies of Galloway (1906) that one leading critic, a Mr Groome, was moved to remark “where, by the bye, did Scott get chury, the only true Romany word in all his works?”

We will never know the answer but we can savour its presence.