Dictionary of the Scots Language

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The Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL) (Scots: Dictionar o the Scots Leid) is an online Scots-English language dictionary, now run by Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd (formerly the Scottish National Dictionary Association), based at George Square, at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. The initial project, which ran from February 2001 to January 2004, was based at the University of Dundee, with some financial additional support from the Scottish Executive, the Arts and Humanities Research Board, Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd, the Russell Trust, and the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. The founding director was Victor Skretkowicz and the founding editor was Susan Rennie.

It comprises electronic editions, freely available on the internet, of the two major dictionaries of the Scots language:

the 12-volume Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST)
the 10-volume Scottish National Dictionary (SND)

DOST contains information about Older Scots words in use from the 12th to the end of the 17th centuries (Early and Middle Scots); and SND contains information about Scots words in use from 1700 to the 1970s (modern Scots). Together these 22 volumes provide a comprehensive history of Scots, and a new supplement in 2005, compiled by Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd, brought the record of the language up to date.

The SND Bibliography and the DOST Register of Titles have also been digitised and can be searched in the same way as the main data files.