suggan - From Ulster to America
Source: From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English
Author: Michael Montgomery
Comments: From Ulster to America recounts the lasting impact eighteenth-century settlers from Ulster have made on the development of the English language of the United States. The book documents over 500 vocabulary items contributed to American English by these ‘Scotch-Irish’ settlers. Each ‘shared’ term with its meaning is authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. This searchable online version of his book takes its text from the dictionary part of the second edition published by the Ullans Press in 2017.
suggan, soogan, sugan, suggaun, suggin, sugin n In Ulster a collar, saddle, or other seating of straw or rushes; in the U.S., a thick blanket or quilt suitable for sleeping outdoors; also, a pouch, carryall. [< Irish súgán or Scottish Gaelic sùgan ‘twisted rope of straw or heather’; oed suggan n ‘a straw rope; a saddle; a coverlet’ 1722→, Anglo-Irish; snd suggan n ‘a coverlet for a horse’s back used instead of a saddle; a bed cover’; dare sugan n 2 ‘a coarse blanket, quilt, or comforter’ chiefly West, especially Rocky Mountains, Southwest, 3 ‘a coarse sack’ chiefly southern Appalachians]
Ulst.:
1829 McSparran Irish Legend 247 He mounted his capul bawn, accoutred in a straw saddle, or what the Irish call a sugan, with stirrups of gads or withes and a pair of branks.
1863 Hume Rabbin’s Ollminick 15 Long sthroes is no motes, as the oul’ woman sayd when she pulled the back saggaun out of the stirabout.
1880 Patterson Antrim/Down Glossary 95 soogan = a saddle of straw or rushes.
1888 O’Leary (in 1888 O’’Leary Legends of Tyrone 133 She lulls them to rest in the low suggaun chair.
1904 Marshall Dial of Ulster 129 soogan = a straw collar, sometimes applied to a neckcloth.
1910 Joyce English in Ireland 330 soogan = a straw or hay rope twisted by the hand.
1923 Lutton Montiaghisms 41 suggan = a rustic saddle or collar, made of hay or straw, with which asses and horses are sometimes accoutred.
1953 Traynor Donegal Glossary 291 suggin = (1) a straw rope; (2) a straw pad, big enough to admit of two on it, on a horse’s back.
1990 Todd Words Apart 153 suggan = hayrope used by farmworkers for tightening their trouser at the ankles to prevent fieldmice running up their legs during harvesting.
1991 O’Kane You Don’t Say 134 soogan = a rope of hay or straw pulled and braided by hand and used for securing stacks.
U.S.:
1904-07 Kephart Notebooks 4:749 Better put a ration in your suggin, Bob.
1915 Hayden Wordlist Montana 245 soogan = sheep herder’s blanket: ‘When they move, they just roll up the soogan and are off’.
1927 Mason Lure of Smokies 98 There was not a vanity case among the effects of his ‘woman’ except perhaps a ‘sugin’ of bear-oil with which, after Indian fashion, she anointed her hair and kept it sleek.
1952 Wilson Folk Speech NC 596 suggin = a bag, wallet; probably same word as soogan.
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Purchase From Ulster to America
The second, revised edition of Michael Montgomery’s From Ulster to America is now available here:
From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English (Europe)
From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English (North America)
