Dratsi

History in a word. The twists and turns in the journey of a word are fascinating. The Shaetlan word for 'otter' is dratsi. It is Shetland specific and one of the few words that has been adopted into the general lexicon from the fishermen's taboo vocabulary.

🦦

The word itself is a derivation of the verb drats 'to move heavily and slowly, to shuffle along' + the suffix -ie which creates nouns (entities). The etymology is obscure: Old Scots has drich/drech 'to loiter, dawdle, move slowly and heavily'. Where that comes from is not known and it is not attested before the 13C, but Middle Dutch and Middle Low, German had treken 'to pull, draw', so that could be a Hansa loan. Old Norse had dratta 'to walk heavily and slowly' (NyNo. dratte), of unknown origin.

🦦

Video by MicrophonicFool licensed under CC-BY-3.0