sybow Sc.
(ˈsaɪbəʊ)
Forms: 6 sebowe, pl. sybees, sybbow, 7 pl. sybeis, 8 pl. sybouse, 8– sybo, 9 seybo(w, se(i)bow, sibow, syboe, sibba, saybee, seybie, 7– sybow.
[Sc. variant of cibol, ciboule, q.v.]
Orig. = chibol 1; now, a young or spring onion with the green stalk attached = chibol 2.
| 1574 in Row Hist. Kirk (Wodrow Soc.) 50 That teind sybbows, leeks, kaill, and onyons, be discharged. 1580 Min. in D. D. Black Hist. Brechin iii. (1867) 44, 40s. resting of {pstlg}8 due James Watt for Sybees that grew in his yard. 1653 Culross Session Minutes, Cited for pulling sybows on the Lords Day. 1659 Melrose Regality Rec. (S.H.S. 1914) 218 [The agreed-on price of] certane sybeis [bought from him]. a 1682 Sempill Blythsome Wedding 55 With sybows and rifarts and carlings. 1727 P. Walker Semple Biog. Presbyt. (1827) I. 162, I have beheaded your Duke like a Sybow. 1818 Scott Old Mort. xxxii, The head's ta'en aff them, as clean as I wad bite it aff a sybo. 1819 W. Tennant Papistry Storm'd (1827) 39 Sebows and leeks. |
| attrib. 1752 Records of Elgin (New Spald. Cl. 1903) I. 462 Ilk firkin of onions or sybowheads 9{supd}. 1786 Burns Ep. to M‘Adam v, A lee dyke-side, a sybow-tail, And barley-scone, shall cheer me. |