Word.ws English Dictionary

curse of Scotland

curse of Scotland proper noun: the nine of diamonds.

Proper noun

curse of Scotland

  1. (slang) The nine of diamonds.
    • With a mixed hand and the highest card the curse of Scotland, I've seen that man stand pat in a game with four millionaire mining men.1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter IV, in The Understanding Heart
    • After a moment of silence, it was Miles who announced in a clear and firm voice, “The cards you have put down there all happen to be black—your ‘red’ is the nine of diamonds, the curse of Scotland, and it's right here,” reaching to lift the sharper's hat, and to remove from atop his head, and...2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 26

Origin of curse of Scotland

Uncertain; it may have come from a resemblance to the coat of arms of Dalrymple, Lord Stair, who was an object of criticism for his part in the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692, and his work in bringing about the Union with England in 1707 (ref. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition 1989).

Questions about curse of Scotland

What does curse of Scotland mean?
Curse of Scotland means the nine of diamonds.
What part of speech is curse of Scotland?
Curse of Scotland is a proper noun.

Words near curse of Scotland in the dictionary

  1. curse like a pagan
  2. curse like a sailor
  3. curse like a trooper
  4. curse of Cain
  5. curse of dimensionality
  6. curse of Scotland
  7. curse of the ninth
  8. curse out
  9. curse tablet
  10. curse tablets
  11. curse word

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: curse of Scotland (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-curse of Scotland.ogg.

Cite this entry: “curse of Scotland.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/curse_of_scotland. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.