Alunt

This week Diarmaid O Muirithe highlighted the word alunt in his Irish Times column, The Words We Use.

It was sent in by a reader in county Down and means 'burning' or 'on fire'.  'To set alunt' means 'to make a blaze' or to 'kindle'.

Back in 1801, in one of his Pastorals, the Scottish poet James Hogg wrote:

For if they set the taxes higher,
They'll set alunt that smoostin' fire
Whulk ilka session helps to beat
An when it burns they'll get a heat.

A century later, in 1901, W Laidlaw wrote, 'A gleed has set the lum alunt'.