gillie

Noun (1)

gillie (plural gillies)

1. (Scotland, originally) A male attendant of a Scottish Highland chief.
   • A Highland chief being as absolute in his patriarchal authority as any prince, had a corresponding number of officers attached to his person. […] Our officer of Engineers, so often quoted, has given us a distinct list of the domestic officers, who, […] belonged to the establishment of a Highland...1847, Walter Scott, “[Notes to Canto Third.] Note XVI.”, in The Lady of the Lake, a Poem, illustrated edition, Philadelphia, Pa.: Carey and Hart, →OCLC, pages 289–290
   • But my good companion had nothing in his mind but kindness; and the next moment, two of the gillies had me by the arms, and I began to be carried forward with great swiftness (or so it appeared to me, although I dare say it was slowly enough in truth), through a labyrinth of dreary glens and...1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC
2. (Ireland, Scotland, UK) A fishing and hunting guide; a man or boy who attends to a person who is fishing or hunting, especially in Scotland.
   • Every deerstalker will bear witness to the eagerness of Highlanders in pursuit of their old favourite game, the dun deer; the mountaineer shews what he is when his eye kindles and his nostril dilates at the sight of a noble stag; when the gillie forgets his master in his keenness, and the southern...1860, “Introduction. The Fairy-egg, and What Came Out of It.”, in J[ohn] F[rancis] Campbell, editor, Popular Tales of the West Highlands: Orally Collected wih a Translation, volume I, Edinburgh...
   • When dinner should be over, supper was to follow with scarcely any interval to speak of; and to partake of this other guests should be bidden—Svengali and Gecko, and perhaps one or two more. No ladies! For, as the unsusceptible Laird expressed it, in the language of a gillie he had once met at a...1894 March, George du Maurier, “Trilby”, in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume LXXXVIII, number DXXVI, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers, 325 to 337 Pearl Street, Franklin Square...

Verb

gillie (third-person singular simple present gillies, present participle gillying, simple past and past participle gillied)

1. (intransitive) To be a gillie, a fishing or hunting guide, for (someone).
   • I had taken bigger fish on the Alta, while fishing as Tony Pulitzer's guest on the Jöraholmen farm, but never under circumstances as bizarre as the day I found myself being ghillied by a girl.1994, Jeremy Paxman, Fish, Fishing and the Meaning of Life, London: Michael Joseph, →ISBN
   • [I]t was distance casting that changed my life. I started by gillying for [William] Taylor, retrieving his line between long casts and laying it out in tangle-free coils on the platform at his side.1998, Phil Genova, quoting Joan Salvato Wulff, “Community Programs”, in First Cast: Teaching Kids to Fly-fish, Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, →ISBN, page 281

Noun (2)

UK/ˈdʒɪli/US/ˈd͡ʒili/

gillie (plural gillies)

1. (Scotland) A gill of an alcoholic drink.
   • Fareweel, my rhyme-compoſing billie! / Your native ſoil was right ill-willie; / But may ye flouriſh like a lily, / Now bonilie! / I'll toaſt ye in my hindmoſt gillie, / Tho' owre the Sea!1786 July 31, Robert Burns, “On a Scotch Bard Gone to the West Indies”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire: Printed by John Wilson, →OCLC; reprinted Kilmarnock...

Proper noun capitalized: Gillie

Gillie (plural Gillies)

1. A surname.