Sc. and north. Eng. Also 7 croudy. [Derivation unknown.
Jamieson conjectured some connection with GROUT, and Icel. groutr porridge; this suits the sense, but leaves phonetic conditions unsatisfied.]
1. Meal and water stirred together so as to form a thick gruel. Frequently used as a designation for food of the brose or porridge kind in general. Jamieson. Now Obs. or only traditionally known.
1668. Ld. Newbottle, Cakes o’ Croudy, in Jacobite Songs. Bannocks of bear meal, cakes of Croudy.
1724. Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc. (1733), I. 91. Powsowdy and drummock and crowdy.
1804. Anderson, Cumbrld. Ballads, 112. For dinner I’d hev a fat crowdy.
1855. Robinson, Whitby Gloss., Crowdy, oatmeal and water boiled to a paste and eaten with salt, or thinned with milk and sweetened. Spoonmeat in general.
1862. Smiles, Engineers, III. 238. There he [Stephenson] had his breakfast of ‘crowdie,’ which he made with his own hands. It consisted of oatmeal stirred into a basin of hot water … which was supped with cold sweet milk.
2. In some parts of the north of Scotland, a peculiar preparation of milk. ? Obs.
‘In Ross-shire it denotes curds with the whey pressed out, mixed with butter, nearly in an equal proportion’ (Jamieson).
1820. Glenfergus, II. 275 (Jam.). Then came … the remains of a cog of crowdy, that is, of half butter, half cheese.
3. Comb., as crowdie-time; crowdy-mowdy = CROWDIE 1, ‘generally denoting milk and meal boiled together’ (Jam.); also humorously as a term of endearment.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, In Secreit Place, 46. My tyrlie myrlie, my crowdie mowdie.
1724. Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc. (1733), I. 21. With crowdy mowdy they fed me.
1787. Burns, Holy Fair, vi. Then I gaed hame at crowdie-time.
