Sheilings

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A term referring to small shelters or huts typically used in highland regions
2. It signifies a temporary dwelling that serves as accommodation during seasonal activities, particularly in pastoral settings
3. This word denotes modest structures often associated with summer grazing sites for livestock in rural landscapes

Etymology: "Sheilings" is the plural of "sheiling," a word from Scots and northern English for a rough hut or hut-group in the uplands where herders stayed with their animals during the summer grazing season. The Scottish Gaelic equivalent, "àirigh," names the same kind of place. Its basic sense is a seasonal dwelling, not a permanent home, and the practice behind it, moving livestock up to high pastures in summer and back down in autumn, was long established in the Highlands and islands. The Scots form "shiel" is usually traced to an earlier Scots or Northern English source, but its exact origin is uncertain, and the Gaelic and English forms are closely linked. Sheilings were often abandoned when families were cleared from the land or when the seasonal system declined in the 18th and 19th centuries, so many survive today only as ruins and place names across Scotland.