Edinburghshire

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Former county in south-east Scotland, around the city of Edinburgh, now known as Midlothian
2. Historic Scottish county surrounding the capital city, officially renamed Midlothian in the late twentieth century
3. Old administrative region of southeastern Scotland that once covered the area around the Scottish capital before its renaming

Etymology: Edinburghshire was the official name of Midlothian, the Scottish county around the city of Edinburgh, and the name is a plain compound: "Edinburgh" plus "shire," the Old English word for a territorial division, which is the same element found in Yorkshire or Lancashire. The city's name itself is older and less transparent. It appears in records as "Din Eidyn," a British (Brittonic) name for a fort on the rock, and the Old English-speaking settlers who came into the region turned it into "Edinburgh," with "burh" meaning a fortified place, so the name carries the same "fort" idea twice over. The county had several names over the centuries, and Edinburghshire was the one used officially from the 1800s until 1921, when the county was renamed Midlothian. Midlothian itself is a more informal regional term, meaning "middle Lothian," which reflects its position between East and West Lothian, the two counties it sat alongside.