saulien.
Scottish. Obsolete exc. Historical.
A hired mourner at a funeral.
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the world > life > death > obsequies > people involved in funeral > [noun] > mourner > hired or professional
weeper1412
saulie1621
blacka1625
mourner1631
wailer1647
dismal?1710
mute1741
keener1786
howler1844
moirologist1886
1621 Sc. Acts Jas. VI (1816) IV. 626/1 That no duillweidis be givin to herauldis, Trumpetoris or saullies Except by the Earlis and lordis and thair wyffes And the number of the saullies to be according to þe number of duilweiddis.
1654 in C. Rogers Soc. Life Scotl. (1884) I. v. 161 [(Funeral of Earl of Buccleuch.) In front marched forty-six] salies [or hired mourners with hoods and bearing black staves].
1773 R. Fergusson Auld Reikie 11 How come Mankind, whan lacking Woe, In Saulie's Face their Heart to show..?
1815 W. Scott Guy Mannering II. 298 And then the funeral pomp set forth; saulies with their batons, and gumphions of tarnished white crape.
1864 R. Paul Let. 7 Oct. in B. Bell Mem. R. Paul (1872) xix. 304 I see in imagination a tall unbendable fellow..grave as a sauley.
1898 W. Drysdale Old Faces 47 When hearses came into fashion, people of distinction were conveyed therein, and were preceded by ‘saulies’.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1910; most recently modified version published online March 2021).
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