Sawney

/ ˈsɔːnɪ /

noun

1. a derogatory word for Scotsman

2. informal,  (also not capital) a fool

Word History and Origins

Origin of Sawney¹

C18: a Scots variant of Sandy, short for Alexander

Example Sentences

A young man about Madison’s age named Sawney went with him.

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But Sawney did not go as a student; he was enslaved.

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In 1769, Madison went off to what is now Princeton University, accompanied by an enslaved man named Sawney.

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He took the gibe and scowled at me--he spoke always like a Sawney, and could never pass for English; but in his pleasure at the discovery he had made he let the word pass.

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In former years, when Sawney left his mountain home, his trouty lochs, and oaten bannocks, for the hot suns and debilitating climate of these “Isles of the West;” he did it for the sake alone of siller.

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