Carlin
An old woman - usually with some affection but occasionally with edge. The word names age and a certain weathered character. Now archaic; heard most often in older Ulster speech, in dialect writing, and in fixed phrases.
Etymology
From Old Norse 'kerling' meaning old woman, itself the feminine form of 'karl' (man, churl). The Norse word came into Older Scots as 'carline' and into Ulster Scots as 'carlin'. Same etymological root as English 'churl' (originally a free man, now a rude one) - the Norse inheritance produced two gendered forms with different fates, and 'carlin' is the surviving female form. The standard English ladder dropped the word entirely after Middle English; Scots and Ulster Scots kept it.
In a sentence
"The old carlin up the road has been telling the same story for forty years and never tells it the same way twice."
Historical notes
Carlin sits alongside 'crone' and 'hag' in the small English vocabulary for older women, but carries less of those words' negative weight. A carlin in older Ulster speech could be a beloved grandmother, a local seer, or a sharp-tongued neighbour - the word marked age and character more than judgement. The Norse-Scots inheritance gives the word a particular distance from southern English usage; in standard English, a 'carling' is now mostly an architectural term for a beam.
Sources
- Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL), entry CARLIN n. · dictionary
- Macafee, Caroline. A Concise Ulster Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1996. · dictionary