Obs. Forms: 4 louh, 4–5 loȝe, 5 logh(e, loughe, 6 lowgh, 4– lough. See also LOW sb.3 [ME. lough, loȝe, perh. repr. ONorthumb. luh (? lúh), rendering L. fretum and stagnum in the Lindisfarne Gospels; the use for fretum suggests that it is a. Irish loch (see LOCH1), though the vowel perh. agrees better with the British word represented by Welsh llwch (:—*luksu-) lake, pool.]
1. A lake, pool. In ME. alliterative poetry sometimes used for: Water, sea.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. Wace (Rolls), 1423. Þe grete Lough of Rusticiadan. Ibid., 10197. In þat louh ar sexti iles.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., A. 119. Alle þe loȝe lemed of lyȝt.
c. 1400. Maundev. (Roxb.), xxi. 95. In þat ile also es a deed see; and it es in maner of a lowgh…. Beside þat logh growez redez of a wonderfull lenth.
c. 1420. Anturs of Arth., 31 (Ireland MS.). He ladde þat lady so longe by that loghe sydus. Ibid., 83. Thare come a lowe one the loughe … In the lyknes of Lucyfere.
1538. Leland, Itin., VII. 58. Divers Springes cummeth owt of Borodale, and so make a great Lowgh that we cawle a Poole; and ther yn be iii Isles.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 65. Nymphea … ii sortes … grow both in meres loughes lakes and in still or standyng waters.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), 173. About Turwan in Fraunce … you shall finde in Loughes and Rayne Waters … great abundance of Fishe.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), IV. 110. Haerlam Mere, a huge inland lough.
1725. De Foe, Tour Gt. Brit., II. I. 121. There is a little Lake or Lough of Water in the Middle of it [Litchfield]. [In ed. 7 (1769), II. 416 this passage is altered as follows: There is a kind of slow, sluggish Lough, or Water, which runs, or rather glides heavily through it, and so on for four or five Miles farther into the Trent.]
1829. Brockett, N. Country Words (ed. 2), Lough, a lake.
b. Sc. (lūχ) = LOCH1. ? Obs.
Cf. the Sc. form louch (14–16th c.) under LOCH1; also the pl. lowis (16th c.); see LOW sb.3
1785. Burns, Address Deil, vii. Wi’ you, mysel, I gat a fright Ayont the lough [rhymes with sough]. Ibid. (1786), Tam Samson’s Elegy, iv. When to the loughs the Curlers flock.
2. attrib.: lough-diver, -plover, names for the female smew; lough-leech = loch-leech (see LOCH1 2).
1678. Ray, Willughby’s Ornith., 338. The Female is described by Gesner under the title of Mergus glacialis, which Mr. Johnson Englisheth the *Lough-diver.
1829. Col. Hawker, Diary (1893), II. 11. A lough diver, or female smew.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 31. Horsleches or *lougheleches.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, II. ccii. 305. Loughleaches.
