Forms: 1 bannuc, 5 -ok, 7 -ack, 6– -ock, (9 Sc. banno’, banna, dim. bannockie). [a. Gael. bannach, ? ad. L. pānicium f. pānis bread.]
1. The name, in Scotland and north of England, of a form in which home-made bread is made; usually unleavened, of large size, round or oval form, and flattish, without being as thin as ‘scon’ or oat-cake. In Scotland, bannocks are usually of barley- or pease-meal, but may be of wheaten flour; in some parts a large fruit cake or bun of the same shape is called a currant-bannock. In north of England the name is sometimes given to oat- or haver-bread, when made thicker and softer than an oat-cake; but local usage varies. (Cf. the dialect glossaries).
a. 1000. Gloss, in Haupt, Zeitsch., IX. 463. Bucellam semiplenam, healfne bannuc.
1483. Cath. Angl., 20. Bannok, focacius, panis subcinericius.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 33 a. Somthyng rysyng in bignes toward the middes, as a litle cake or bannock … which is hastely baked upon ye harth.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Wks., I. 78/2. Or Oaten cakes or Bannacks, as in North Britaine.
1663. in Spalding, Troub. Chas. I. (1829), 114. Baked good bannocks at the fire.
1674. Ray, N. Countr. Wds., 5. Tharcakes, the same with Bannocks, viz. Cakes made of Oat-meal … without Yeast or Leaven.
1724. A. Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc. (1733), II. 167. She gi’es us white bannocks.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., viii. To procure butter-milk and pease-bannocks.
1860. All Y. Round, No. 45. 440. Barley bannocks and oat cake long remained the staff of life in villages in Scotland.
[1870. R. Chambers, Pop. Rhymes Scotl., 88. ‘Welcome, welcome, wee bannockie!’ Ibid., 87. And that was the end o’ the banna.]
† 2. ‘A small quantity of meal [sufficient to make a bannock] due to the servants of a mill by those grinding their corns or thirled thereto, ordinarily termed in charters of mills the sequels.’ Spottiswoode’s MS. Law Dict., in Jamieson. Obs.
1773. Erskine, Inst. Sc. Law, II. ix. § 19 (Jam.). The sequels … pass by the name of knaveship … bannock, and lock.
3. Comb. (all Sc.), as bannock-fed, -shaped; bannock-fluke (also bannet-), the turbot; bannock-stick, a wooden roller for rolling out bannocks; bannock-stone = BAKESTONE.
1844. in Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, II. xii. 102. The folk are bannock-fed.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xi. Caller haddocks and whitings—a bannock-fluke and a cock-paddle.
1724. A. Ramsay, Tea-t. Misc. (1733), II. 181. Bakbread and a bannock-stane.
a. 1800. Hogg, Jacobite Relics (1819), I. 118 (Jam.). A bassie and a bannock-stick.
