The Scottish National Dictionary (SND) and A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue are freely available online Dictionaries of the Scots Language Online (DOST). Their 12,000 pages in 22 volumes document the Scots-speaking people’s language, history, culture, and customs.
The conversion of two massive print dictionaries into searchable digital versions was a huge undertaking, and their 2004 online publication was just the start. Since then, DSL has worked on fixing issues with the print-based dictionaries and enhancing their web interface. On April 26th, 2022, a second significant batch of fixes and upgrades was announced. This second update’s key changes include:
- All supplementary material is now integrated with the dictionaries’ original entries.
- We now say when each entry was first published and whether it incorporates supplementary material.
- Thousands of corrections and minor edits have been implemented.
- All references to ‘next’ or ‘preceding’ entries have been replaced by hyperlinks to the relevant entries.
- There is easier access to the explanations of abbreviations and symbols.
- The maximum number of search results displayed is increased to 500 and the total number of results is now shown.
- Dates have been added to thousands of quotations in DOST.
- Hundreds of sources cited but not listed in SND have been added to the bibliography.