haggis
(ˈhægɪs)
Also 5 hagas(e, hagese, hageys, hagws, (hakkys), 6 hagges, -eis, -ise, 6–8 haggas, -ass(e, -ess)e, 7–8 haggus, 8 haggice, -ies, 9 -ish, -iss.
[Derivation unknown.
The analogy of most terms of cookery suggests a French source; but no corresp. F. word or form has been found. The conjecture that it represents F. hachis ‘hash’, with assimilation to hag, hack, to chop, has app. no basis of fact; F. hachis is not known so early, and the earlier forms of the Eng. word are more remote from it. Whether the word is connected with hag vb., evidence does not show.]
1. a. A dish consisting of the heart, lungs, and liver of a sheep, calf, etc. (or sometimes of the tripe and chitterlings), minced with suet and oatmeal, seasoned with salt, pepper, onions, etc., and boiled like a large sausage in the maw of the animal.
(Now considered specially Scotch, but a popular dish in English cookery down to the beginning of the 18th c. Cf. also quots. 1879–90.)
| c 1420 Liber Cocorum (1862) 52 For hagese. Þe hert of schepe, þe nere þou take..Hacke alle togeder with gode persole [etc.]. c 1430 Two Cookery-bks. 39 Hagws of a schepe. Take þe Roppis with þe talowe, & parboyle hem; þan hakke hem smal. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 220/2 Hagas, puddynge (S. hakkys, puddyngys, H. hageys). 1508 Dunbar Flyting w. Kennedie 128 The gallowis gaipis eftir thy graceles gruntill, As thow wald for ane haggeis. 1530 Palsgr. 228/2 Haggas a podyng, caliette de mouton. 1615 Markham Eng. Housew. (1660) 178 This small Oat-meal mixed with blood, and the Liver of either Sheep, Calfe, or Swine, maketh that pudding which is called the Haggas or Haggus, of whose goodnesse it is in vain to boast, because there is hardly to be found a man that doth not affect them. 1675 Hobbes Odyssey (1677) 219 Antinous a haggas brought, fill'd up With fat and blood. 1721 Bailey, Haggess, a Sheep's Maw fill'd with minc'd Meat. 1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. (1815) 268, I am not yet Scotchman enough to relish their singed sheep's-head and haggice. 1796 H. Glasse Cookery v. 85 To make a Scotch Haggass, take the lights, heart, and chitterlings of a calf. 1825 Brockett N.C. Gloss., Haggis, Haggish, a dish..sometimes only of oatmeal, suet and sugar—stuffed into a sheep's maw and boiled. Sold in the Newcastle market. 1836–48 B. D. Walsh Aristoph., Clouds i. iv, I neglected to nick a haggis one day I was roasting to dine my relations. 1864 Burton Scot Abr. I. v. 323 There is something transcendentally Scotch about a haggis. [1879 G. F. Jackson Shropsh. Word-bk., Haggis,..the smaller entrails of a calf; what the chitterlings are in a pig. 1890 Gloucester Gloss., Haggus, calf's chitterlings (Hundred of Berkeley).] |
b. transf. and fig. The paunch.
| 1836 Sir G. Head Home Tour 307, I can certainly testify to the inordinate quantity that..the human haggis will hold. |
c. An indolent do-nothing fellow.
| 1822 Carlyle in Early Lett. (1886) II. 28 The lazy haggises! they must sink when we shall soar. |
d. A mixture, hodge-podge; a mess.
| 1899 Daily News 13 Sept. 7/6 They cheerfully go through the curious haggis of social and philanthropic duties served up to them each week. 1928 W. A. J. Archbold (title) Bengal haggis. 1929 H. Marwick Orkney Norn 66/1 He'll just mak a haggis o' the job. |
2. Comb., as haggis-bag, haggis-maker, haggis-pudding; haggis-fed adj.
| 1483 Cath. Angl. 169/1 An Hagas maker, tucetarius. 1545 T. Raynalde Byrth Mankynde i. xiv. (1634) 51 The bag of an Haggasse pudding. 1787 Burns To a Haggis 37 But mark the rustic, haggis-fed. 1819 Blackw. Mag. Sept. 677 More like an empty haggis-bag than any thing else. |