Huntly

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A market town in the Aberdeenshire region of northeast Scotland ; a family name of Scottish origin, borne by people with that surname
2. A small town in Aberdeenshire, northeast Scotland ; a surname of Scottish origin that belongs to a particular family line
3. A settlement in the Aberdeenshire area of Scotland's northeast ; a Scottish family name carried by individuals sharing that lineage

Etymology: Huntly is a town in Aberdeenshire in northeast Scotland, and its name is a transplanted one: the town took it from a place in the parish of Gordon in Berwickshire, far to the south near the English border. That Berwickshire place-name is thought to combine Old English "hunta", meaning "hunter", with "leah", meaning "clearing" or "meadow", so the original sense is roughly "hunter's clearing." The name survived the move south-to-north largely because it was attached to a noble family. The Gordon family, who held lands in Berwickshire, later took the title of Earl of Huntly, and the Aberdeenshire town of Huntly came to be known by the same name. The word therefore records a Scottish landowning dynasty as much as a medieval hunting ground.