Sc. Forms: 4 kerss, 6 cars, 7– carse. [Of uncertain derivation, but perhaps the same word as carres, carrs, cars, pl. of CARR sb.2 fen, low wet land.
This suits the sense: the early quotations speak of the kerss as full of pools and mires: Trivet describes the Carse of Falkirk in time of Edwd. I. as loca palustria (Jam.). The suppression of the vowel of the plural is phonetically regular, and the retention of the (s) sound instead of its change to (z) is seen also in pence, dice, mice, truce (the latter also, like carse, made into a singular). Cf. also the change of Pieres, Peres to Piers, Pierce. The difficulty is that no early examples of kerris or carres are found in Sc.; in Barbour the word is already kerss. The Welsh cors ‘marsh’ suits the sense, but presents a difficulty in the vowel, as well as in the geographical localization of the word.]
The stretch of low alluvial land along the banks of some Scottish rivers:
‘Thus all the flat lands, on the north side of Tay, between Perth and Dundee, are called the Carse of Gowrie; those on the Forth, the Carse of Stirling, and the Carse of Falkirk’ (Jam.). The name appears to have originally referred to their wet fenny character, but is now associated with their rich fertility.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, XII. 392. Thai herbryit thame that nycht Doune in the kerss … in the kerss pollis [= pools] ther war.
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 554. Into the cars of Gowrie quhair tha la.
1657. Colvil, Whigs Supplic., 100. When mires grew hard, like toasted bread, That men might through the Carses ride.
1787. Burns, Let. G. Hamilton, 28 Aug. The windings of Forth through the rich carse of Stirling, and skirting the equally rich carse of Falkirk.
1822. Southey, After King’s Visit Scotl., i. Highland and lowland, glen and fertile carse.
1873. Burton, Hist. Scot., I. iii. 83. The haughs or carses on the borders of the rivers.
b. attrib.
1797. Statist. Acc. Scotl., XIX. 448. What lies next the river is carse clay.
1806. Forsyth, Beauties Scotl., III. 52. The soil … formed by the slime deposited in floods, is of the nature of carse-ground.
1873. Geikie, Gt. Ice Age, xxii. 287. The great carse-lands of the estuaries.
1881. Alloa Advertiser, No. 1617. 2/1. Carse farmers have … got their fallow wheat sown.
