Kirkcudbrightshire

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A former county in the south-western region of Scotland, historically located in the area now part of Dumfries and Galloway
2. A historical shire that once occupied south-western Scotland, now administratively incorporated into the modern council area of Dumfries and Galloway
3. An old Scottish county in the south-west that has been subsumed into the present-day local authority of Dumfries and Galloway

Etymology: Kirkcudbrightshire is a historic county in southwest Scotland, and its name is simply a combination of two parts. The first, "Kirkcudbright," is the name of the town at the mouth of the River Dee on the Solway coast, while "-shire" is the familiar English suffix meaning a county, from Old English "scir," a share or division of responsibility. The town's own name is usually traced to Gaelic elements meaning "church of Cuthbert," referring to Saint Cuthbert, though the pronunciation "KIR-coo-bree" bears little resemblance to the spelling. Because the county was named after its county town in the usual Scottish pattern, the word works like many other British county names such as Berwickshire or Roxburghshire. Its ending marks it as a shire first and a place second, which is why the name reads as a bureaucratic label rather than a descriptive one.