K

Kail is a type of cabbage or any dish made from cabbage, particularly a vegetable broth or stew.
Kail also means food in general. This now old-fashioned sense of the word derives from the fact that kail was once one of the staple foods of the Scottish diet.
I will be back here to my kail against ane o'clock.
The phrase cauld kail het again in its literal sense means yesterday's leftover food reheated and served again. It is also used figuratively to mean a story that one has heard countless times before.
Kail is the Scots form of cole.

A kailyard is a vegetable patch or kitchen garden.
Kailyard is also used to allude to an unrealistically sentimental and couthy picture of Scottish life similar to that which the writers of the Kailyard School are often accused of displaying.
the decayed romanticism of tartanry and kailyard

The Kailyard School is the name given to a group of Scottish writers who depicted rural life in Scotland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such writers, of whom J.M. Barrie is the most famous, used authentic dialect in their works but tended to paint a rather idealized or sentimental portrait of country life.

Keech is excrement.

To keek is to peep or glance at something.
She keeked out through the curtains.
A keek is also a peep or a glance.
Take a keek out of the window.
The word is from the Middle Dutch kîken to look.

A keeker is a black eye.
I had a right keeker the next morning.
The word is from keek.

A keekhole is a peephole or a chink in a door or wall.

1. A keelie is a young working-class male from a city or large town. The term is generally derogatory and implies that the person is rough, tough, and a potential hooligan. In Glasgow, however, it is sometimes used more neutrally. Also, in Glasgow girls can be called keelies.
   a Glesca keelie
   The word comes from the Gaelic gille a lad.
2. A keelie is also an old-fashioned name for a kestrel.
   This sense is probably imitative of the bird's cry.

Keepie-uppie is the skill of juggling with a football with one's feet, knees, chest, and head.

In Scottish folklore, a kelpie is a water spirit or demon in the form of a horse. Kelpies were believed to inhabit lochs and rivers, and to lure the unwary to watery graves.
Kelpie is possibly from the Gaelic cailpeach a bullock.

A Kelvinside accent is an affected and over-refined form of Scottish English spoken by some of the genteel upper-middle class inhabitants of the Glasgow area.
It is named after a wealthy residential area in the West End of Glasgow.
One of the characteristics of the Kelvinside accent is the pronunciation of "ah" as "eh".
These little French fencies are ectually rether nice.
In Edinburgh the equivalent accent is known as Morningside.

To ken is to know. The past tense and past participle is kent.
The word is in frequent everyday use everywhere in Scotland, with the exception of the Glasgow area.
I kent I'd find ye here.
...D'ye ken wee Quigley fae Darvel?
...It's nice to see a weel-kent face.
Ken is also used as a filler word to make a pause in speaking or add slight emphasis to a statement in the same way as 'you know'.
Mickey Weir's no playin' for the Hibs the day, ken.
I kent his faither is a derogatory phrase used to remind those who have achieved success (especially if achieved away from Scotland) that they are no better than anyone else.
Burn's simple, defiantly human assertion that 'a man's a man for a' that' is inevitably recycled as the reductive and degrading putdown 'I kent his faither'.
The word ultimately derives from the Old Norse kenna to perceive.

Kenspeckle means familiar, well-known, or easily recognized.
He is a kenspeckle figure in Glasgow's Asian community.
The word perhaps comes from the Old Norse kennispecki power of recognition.

Kep is a now chiefly Northeastern word meaning to catch.
He keppit the ba.
It can also mean to catch a bus or train.
I keppit e bus at e heid o e road.
The word comes from an obsolete sense of keep, to put oneself in the way of.

In children's games a cry of keys! indicates the speaker's desire for a truce or a temporary suspension of the rules. The word is chiefly found in Western Scotland, children in the East generally using the term barley instead.

To say that someone kicks with the left foot is a humorous way of saying that the person is a Catholic.
Someone described as kicking with the wrong foot professes a different religion from that of the speaker. This phrase is used especially by Protestants of Catholics and vice versa. Scottish members of non-Christian religions have yet to be heard employing this expression.
The terms allude to the belief in the North of Ireland that Catholic farm workers use their left foot to push the spade when digging, and Protestants the right.

Kilmarnock football team is nicknamed Killie.
Killie's victory was all the more remarkable in that they achieved it with ten men.

A Kilmarnock bonnet is a flat broad cap made of blue, red, or black wool.
This type of cap was produced in Kilmarnock, an Ayrshire town once noted for its textile industries.

A kilt is a knee-length pleated skirt, especially one in tartan, worn as part of a man's Highland dress. Originally worn in the Highlands and then by Scottish regiments in the British Army, kilts are now to be seen adorning Scotsmen (whether Highlanders or Lowlanders) at weddings, graduations, and other celebratory occasions.
The word comes from the Danish kilte to tuck up.

A kiltie is a jocular and slightly derogatory word used to describe a man wearing a kilt.

Kincardine or Kincardineshire is a former county in Northeastern Scotland, on the East Coast south of Aberdeen. It is now administered by Aberdeenshire single-tier local council. It is also known as the Mearns.

Kinross or Kinross-shire is a former county of Eastern Scotland, inland from Fife. It is now administered by Perthshire and Kinross single-tier local council.

A kirk is a Presbyterian church.
a small local country kirk
...Off she went to kirk.
It is sometimes used, with an initial capital, in the name of individual churches.
Bothkennar Kirk near Falkirk
The word derives from the Old Norse kirkja.

The Kirk is a less formal name for the Church of Scotland.
He is the convenor of the Kirk's committee on chaplains.

Another name for the Stewartry of Kircudbright.

A kirking is a ceremonial attendance at a church, especially by councillors and officials after the election of a new town council.
At the traditional Kirking of the Council last month he averted a row over the robes by wearing a kilt in the McDuff tartan.

Another name for a beadle.

In a Presbyterian Church, the kirk session is the body responsible for governing the affairs of an individual church in a parish. It consists of the minister and the elders

A kist is a large chest or wooden box.
A kist is also the chest (the part of the body).
The word is a Scottish form of chest.

A kist o' whistles is a derogatory name for a church organ. The phrase, originally used by those opposed to the use of musical instruments in church, is now mainly literary.
A kist o' whistles is also a wheezy chest or a person with a wheezy chest.

1. Someone who is kittle is unpredictable and capricious.
To kittle also means to be puzzling or troubling to someone.
2. Another sense of kittle is to tickle or be ticklish.

A klondyker is a large vessel which buys fish direct from the fishermen in Scottish waters, then processes the fish on board before returning to its home port, invariably in Eastern Europe.

Part of the Klondyker fleet, the vessel was reputedly bought by a Nigerian Millionaire.
A klondyker can also be someone who works on one of these ships.
He said that the klondykers had remained relatively calm, despite the captain and most of the officers having been killed or injured by the blast.
The activity of buying and processing fish in this way is called klondyking.
The name comes from Klondyke in Alaska, a gold-mining centre, with allusion to the profits which could be made by fishermen who sold their fish to these factory ships.

Knock is an old-fashioned or literary word for a clock.
The old Tolbooth knock can still be seen in the town's museum.
knock is a Scottish variant of clock.

A knowe is a small rounded hill.
The word is a Scots form of knoll.

To knype on is a Northeastern term meaning to keep going or slog away at something, often used in the sense of going steadily through life without any great mishap.
Aye knypin on?
It is sometimes shortened to knype.
"Foo ye doin?" "Oh, knypin."
Knype literally means to knock and is probably onomatopoeic in origin.

Kye are cattle. The word is a plural form of coo.

A kyle is a narrow strait of the sea or narrow part of a river. It is used mainly in place names.
Kyle of Lochalsh
...the Kyles of Bute
The word comes from the Gaelic caol narrow.