Fitless, defined by Dictionaries of the Scots Language as “Unsteady on the feet, tottery, apt to stumble, either from weakness or inattention…”, basically means footless or clumsy. It is a word that many parents would use to describe their children returning home with skinned knees or sprained ankles. Here’s a nice illustration from Jeanie Ramsay’s poem Wha Was to Blame? (Southern Reporter, 1924):

“In my Sunday frock I’m bonnie an’ braw,

To school I’m on my way;

But I maun watch I dinna fa’

Like I fa’ed yesterday.

For I slipped in the glaur, just yonder whaur

The road comes doon the brae…

An’ tho’ I grat the hale way hame,

My mither me misca’ed,

An’ raged an’ put on me the blame,

For ‘a senseless, fitless jaud.’”

Earlier, in Lays and Legends of the North (1884), David Grant described this poor soul: “Francie lived but just a year, A fitless, dottled man”.

Not so much denoting clumsiness as much as the usual perils of winter, the Montrose, Arbroath and Brechin Review (December 1923) recorded that: “The roads are somewhat slippery and are a source of considerable trouble to all those who, like the writer, are somewhat fitless on ice”.  

Finally, also on the weather, the Belfast Newsletter of August 2003 made this observation: “Ye get a guid notion o hoo aften oor fowk think oan tha weather quhan hit cums intil collouges aboot ither things. A fitless bhoy oan a daunce fluir ur a fitba fiel micht bae toul tha es awor nor a deuck in thunner”.

Scots Word of the Week comes from Dictionaries of the Scots Language. Visit DSL Online at https://dsl.ac.uk.