Sc. and north. dial. Forms: 6 speane, 6, 8–9 spean (8 speean, 9 spene). [Later form of SPANE v., or independently ad. MDu. or MLG. spenen (Du. and Flem. spenen, LG. spenen, spänen), = MHG. spenen (G. dial. spänen), f. spene SPEAN sb.1]
1. trans. To wean, in lit. and fig. senses.
1595. Duncan, App. Etym. (E. D. S.), Depello, to put away, to speane, lacte depellere.
1599. A. Hume, Poems (S.T.S.), 87. Thinke not that thou art sufficientlie mortified, and speaned from the world.
1781. J. Hutton, Tour to Caves (ed. 2), Gloss. 96. Spain, or spean, to wean.
1788. W. H. Marshall, Yorksh., II. 354. To Speean...; to wean, as calves or pigs.
1808–. in Sc. and northern dial. glossaries and texts.
1831. Sutherland Farm Rep., 75, Husb. (L.U.K.), III. The fields … not being eaten bare by the sheep, the scythe is passed over them as soon as the lambs have been speaned.
1871. W. Alexander, Johnny Gibb, xxix. The vera winter that Benjie was spean’t.
absol. 1831. Sutherland Farm Rep., 79, Husb. (L.U.K.), III. The sale ewe lot … which are then brought in to lamb, and, consequently, to spean early.
b. In phrases implying the creation of extreme disgust, repression, etc.
1790. Burns, Tam o’ Shanter, 160. But wither’d beldams, auld and droll, Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal.
1826. Scott, Lett., in Lockhart (1839), I. 171. One of the ugliest countenances…, enough as we say to spean weans.
1895. R. B. C. Graham, Notes on Menteith, i. 13. Hideous slate-roofed cottages, properly sanitated, and hideous enough to spean a bairn.
2. (See quot. and SPANE v. 2.)
1829. Brockett, N. C. Gloss. (ed. 2), Young corn is said to be speaned, when the milky … juice of its grain is exhausted, and it is obliged to depend on the nutriment collected by its own roots.
Hence Speaning vbl. sb.; also attrib. in speaning brash, time (cf. SPANING vbl. sb. b).
1831. Sutherland Farm Rep., 75, Husb. (L.U.K.), III. That the aftermath may be, at speaning time, open to recruit the weakest and worst fed lambs. Ibid., 78. The speaning was performed nearly a fortnight sooner than had been formerly practised.
1872. Macmillan, True Vine, iii. 122. After a while the field of emerald loveliness looks suddenly sere and yellow…. This remarkable change is caused by what the farmers call the ‘speanin brash.’
