Dictionaries of the Scots Language:: SND :: fifie

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About this entry:First published 1956 (SND Vol. IV). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

FIFIE, n. [′fəifi]

1. A type of herring fishing boat with vertical stem and stern-posts, common in the second half of the 19th and early 20th cents. on the E. Coast, prob. so called from having been first built and used on the Fife coast. Many have now been fitted with motors and remain in use for coastal white fishing (e.Sc. 1952).Bnff. 1905 Banffshire Jnl. (28 March): A place for biggin heerin' boats Zulus, Fifies — best afloat.Sc. 1906 H. W. Smyth Mast and Sail (1929) 96: On the east coast of Scotland from the English borders to Whitehills in Banffshire, and along the coasts of Caithness and the Orkney Islands (and during the “eighties” and “nineties,” the Shetlands also), the boats used in the herring fishing have always been of the “Fifie” build, with very little rake.Sc. 1950 P. F. Anson Sc. Fisherfolk 104: The most common type of Scottish fishing vessel until about the introduction of steam was the “Fifie.” . . . Until 1855 they were undecked and of small size. Their characteristic features were vertical and comparatively sharp bows and sterns.Fif. 1985 Christopher Rush A Twelvemonth and a Day 116: But there were still three Fifies sailing out of St Monans when I was born. They were the Barbara Beattie, the True Vine and the White Rose, all of them skippered by men who refused to give up the sail which had brought them through their working lives.

2. The local name for the ferry-boats plying between Newport in Fife and Dundee.Ags. 1952 Scots Mag. (Aug.) 357: When finally I crossed the Firth of Tay to Dundee it was on the “Fifie,” of course, that I did so.em.Sc. 1990 Scotsman 3 Mar 14: I'm old enough to remember the thrill, as a child, of doing the Fifie and the Queensferry in a single trip, then back home the dull way via Kincardine bridge. The Fifie for the uninitiated, was the plucky little ferry which plied its way across the Tay from Dundee to Tayport. Dundee 1992: The Fifie was the ferry that went from Dundee, not Broughty Ferry, to Newport.

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"Fifie n.". Dictionary of the Scots Language. 2004. Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd. Accessed 16 Jul 2024

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