Sc. [f. KEMP v.] A contest, esp. of reapers when kemping.
1786. Har’st Rig, in Chambers, Pop. Hum. Scot. Poems (1862), 50. The master … cries with haste, ‘Come, lads, forbear, This kemp let be.’
1844. Richardson, Borderer’s Table Bk., VII. 372. The stormy Kemp, or emulous struggle for the honour of the ridge-end.
1870. Hunter, Stud., Pref. (E.D.D.). What ever lesson we began to, we gaed at it just like a kemp on the hairst rig.
