Contextualizebeta

gillie

noun
/ˈɡɪli/UK/ˈɡɪli/US/ˈdʒɪli/UK/ˈd͡ʒili/US

Etymology

From gill (“drink measure for spirits”) + -ie; probably a nonce word coined by Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–1796) to maintain the rhyme in a poem entitled On a Scotch Bard Gone to the West Indies, first published in 1786: see the quotation.

  1. derived from gildr
  2. derived from gilla
  3. derived from gille

Definitions

  1. A male attendant of a Scottish Highland chief.

  2. A fishing and hunting guide

    A fishing and hunting guide; a man or boy who attends to a person who is fishing or hunting, especially in Scotland.

  3. To be a gillie, a fishing or hunting guide, for (someone).

    • I had taken bigger fish on the Alta, while fishing as Tony Pulitzer's guest on the Jöraholmen farm, but never under circumstances as bizarre as the day I found myself being ghillied by a girl.
    • [I]t was distance casting that changed my life. I started by gillying for [William] Taylor, retrieving his line between long casts and laying it out in tangle-free coils on the platform at his side.
  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. A gill of an alcoholic drink.

      • Fareweel, my rhyme-compoſing billie! / Your native ſoil was right ill-willie; / But may ye flouriſh like a lily, / Now bonilie! / I'll toaſt ye in my hindmoſt gillie, / Tho' owre the Sea!

    2. A surname.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for gillie. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA