sheugh
nounUS /ʃu/ · UK /ʃuːx/
Etymology From Irish seoch, from English sough.
1
Ireland, Scotland A ditch, especially a field boundary ditch usually used to drain fields and mark their boundaries.
- The original ditches were created by digging trenches, as boundaries and/or irrigation. But to the English, the ditch is the trench. Whereas in Ireland, the ditch is the raised bank of earth and the hedgerow on top. (As for the trench, where I come from that’s a sheugh).2013 October 31, Frank McNally, “When Anglophone lines get crossed”, in The Irish Times, Dublin: Irish Times Trust, archived from the original on 14 Mar 2021:
2
Northern Ireland, Scotland, Colloquial The space between the buttocks.
Especially coastal
- The sweat is running down the sheugh of my arse.
3
Ireland, Colloquial The Atlantic Ocean; the sea.
- The Irish Sea is the little sheugh, the Atlantic is the big sheugh.