skelp

From Middle English skelpen, probably of imitative origin. The noun is from Middle English skelp, from the verb.

skelp (third-person singular simple present skelps, present participle skelping, simple past and past participle skelped)

1. (transitive, Scotland, Northern England) To beat or slap.
   • 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 24:

     But Mistress Munro would up and be at the door and in she'd yank Andy by the lug, and some said she'd take down his breeks and skelp him, but maybe that was a lie.

   • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin 2009, p. 67:

     My stomach was just sore and I was rubbing it. But he just reached and skelped me on the leg and I fell down and he waited for me to get up and he skelped me on the b*m.

2. (intransitive, Scotland) To move briskly along.

skelp (plural skelps)

1. A blow; a smart stroke.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Brockett to this entry?)

2. (Scotland) A squall; a heavy fall of rain.
3. (Scotland) A large portion.

skelp (plural skelps)

1. A narrow strip of rolled or forged metal, ready to be bent and welded to form a pipe.
   • 1836, William Newton (editor), The London Journal of Arts and Sciences; and Repertory of Patent Inventions, pages 407-8,

     […] he then heats one half of the skelp at a time in an air furnace, or other fire, and having so heated it, he passes the skelp between a pair of grooved rollers placed at the mouth of the furnace, for the purpose of uniting (or marrying, as he terms it) the edges of the metal ; that is, causing the edges of the open part of the skelp to be pressed together, and made to adhere and form a complete cylinder.

skelp (third-person singular simple present skelps, present participle skelping, simple past and past participle skelped)

1. (transitive) To form (a plate or bar of metal, etc.) into a skelp.
2. (transitive) To bend round (a skelp) in tube-making.

• kelps, spelk

Probably imitative, or from Scottish Gaelic sgealp (“slap”).

skelp (third-person singular present skelps, present participle skelpin, past skelpt, past participle skelpt)

1. To beat, slap, now especially the backside.

   She skelpt ma doup

   She spanked my bottom

   A wis skelpt in the face fae the tree's beuch

   I was slapped in the face by the tree branch.