camshoch, a. Sc.
(ˈkamʃəx, ˈkamʃə)
Also 6 camschow, -scho, 7 -schoche, 8 campsho, 8–9 camsheugh, 9 -shach.
[The first part is evidently cam a. ‘crooked, perverse’; the second perh. represents OE. sceoh ‘askew, perverse’, of which schoch would be the normal Scotch form: Jamieson has also the Sc. verbs sheuch, shach to distort, and shachle, shochle to distort, wriggle.]
1. Crooked, distorted, awry; deformed.
| 1513 Douglas æneis iii. x. 43 Thai elriche brethir..with mony camscho beik, And hedis semand to the hevin areik. Ibid. vii. Prol. 107 Laithlie of forme, wyth crukit camschow beik. a 1600 Montgomerie Flyting 295 That cruiked, camschoche croyll, vncristned, they curse. 1730 Ramsay Twa Cats & Ch. 13 A monkey with a campsho face. 1807–10 Tannahill Poems (1846) 21 Auld, swirlon, slaethorn, camsheugh, crooked Wight. |
2. fig. Perverse (in disposition or fortune).
| 1606 W. Birnie Kirk-Burial (1833) 36 The camshoch commons now at last coms in a rere warde to debate the cause. 1787 W. Taylor Scots Poems 170 (Jam.) Bot camshach wife or girnin gett. 1790 A. Wilson To E. Picken, The queer carles sae camsheugh spak'. a 1809 Christmas Ba'ing in Skinner Misc. Poet. 129 (Jam.) Pate had caught a camshach cair At this uncanny wark. |