Scriddan

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A kind of landslide in which rain loosens the side of a mountain or hill and rocks slide down. Scotland, rare

    "AUCHUIRN, in the Shire of Ross: and in the Parish of Kintail. This is now a Farm in Glenelchaig, but was once a populous Town, which, in 1745, was rendered uninhabitable by an awful Scriddan or Mountain Torrent, and has since been converted into a grazing District."

Example

More examples

"AUCHUIRN, in the Shire of Ross: and in the Parish of Kintail. This is now a Farm in Glenelchaig, but was once a populous Town, which, in 1745, was rendered uninhabitable by an awful Scriddan or Mountain Torrent, and has since been converted into a grazing District."

Etymology

A relation to Old Norse skriða (“landslide, scree”) or an unattested Old English cognate thereof, *scridan (plural of *scride), has been suggested, as has derivation from a Gaelic word sgriodan, itself perhaps from Norse. Compare scree.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.