▪ I. nolt Sc.
(noult, nɔlt)
Also 6 noult.
[Originally only a graphic variant of nowt, by false analogy with bowt bolt, cowt colt, etc., but latterly accepted as a distinct word.]
1. Neat, cattle; oxen or cows.
| c 1470 Henry Wallace x. 551 Off nolt and scheip thai tuk at sufficiens. 1500–20 Dunbar Poems xxii. 73 Twa curis or thre hes vpolandis Michell,..Thocht he fra nolt had new tane leif. 1535 Stewart Cron. Scot. III. 218 Baith scheip and nolt, gait and all vther gair. a 1585 Polwart Flyting w. Montgomerie 182 On ruites and runches in the fielde, With nolt thou nurishde was a ȝeir. 1609 Skene Reg. Maj. 155 Na maner of gudes, horse, meiris, nolt, sheip, or vther cattell. a 1670 Spalding Troub. Chas. I (Bann. Club) 25 Ther came doun certain hielanders..and took away three⁓score nolt. 1716 Wodrow Corr. (1843) II. 135 Nor did they spare the very nolt that were for plowing the ground. 1822 W. J. Napier Pract. Store-farming 254 Turning out a parcel of half-starved nolt upon the hill. 1865 Carlyle Fredk. Gt. V. xiii. v. 67 Who dares me..insult, Him will I serve like this fat head of nolt. 1895 Crockett Men of Moss-Hags 356 A good stock both of nolt and sheep. |
2. attrib., as nolt-beast, nolt-byre, nolt-fold, nolt-foot, etc.
| 1513 Douglas æneis xi. xv. 100 Quhen that he hes..weryit the nolt herd on the plane. ? a 1550 Freiris Berwik 260 in Dunbar's Poems (1893) 294 Ane sowsit nolt fute, and scheipheid. 1581 Burne Disput. in Cath. Tract. (S.T.S.) 138 Ye vill that thair be na difference betuix your kirkis, and als monie noult faldis. 1595 Duncan App. Etym. (E.D.S.) 67 Bubile, a nolte byer: boum stabulum. 1681 Min. Baron Crt. Stitchill (1905) 89 Taking out of some nolt beasts out of..his stabls. 1739 A. Nicol Nature without Art 85 That Station now had been much better Than Nolt-herd or a Shepherd either. c 1817 Hogg Tales & Sk. VI. 194 [That loading] was of nolt-hides; that is, of cow-hides, oxen-hides, bull-hides and all sorts of hides. |
▪ II. nolt
wilt not: see nill v.
▪ III. nolt(e
know not: see not v.