Caithness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A county located in the far north of mainland Scotland, bordered by the North Sea and known for its rugged landscapes
2. A region in northern Scotland historically forming a traditional county in the Highlands with characteristic coastal and moorland terrain
3. A traditional Scottish county in the northernmost part of the mainland, situated in the Highlands near the Pentland Firth

Etymology: Caithness is a place name, the northern county of Scotland, and its name records a people before it records a place. The first element comes from the Catti, a tribe whose name survives in this northern corner of Britain, and the name is generally thought to be Pictish, the language of the peoples who lived in northern Scotland before the Gaelic and Norse settlers arrived. The tribe's own name is of uncertain origin, though scholars have compared it with a reconstructed Germanic-style root meaning "battle," which may be a clue to how the people were known to their neighbours. The second element is "ness," from Old Norse "nes," meaning "headland" or "promontory." Norse speakers settled the far north and islands of Scotland in the ninth and tenth centuries, and they attached this familiar word to many coastal features, as in Orkney's Dunnet Head or the Ness of Lewis. Caithness therefore joins an older tribal name to a Norse geographical term, so the place is named for the Catti people of the headland.