Black Saturdayn.
/ˌblak ˈsatədeɪ/, U.S. /ˈblæk ˈsædərˌdeɪ/ Scottish History.
1. (A name given to) 10 September 1547, the date of the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, at which the Scottish army was heavily defeated by the English.
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society > armed hostility > armed encounter > [noun] > battle or a battle > specific battle
battle (also day or journey) of (the) spurs1548
Black Saturday1576
1576 in R. Pitcairn Criminal Trials Scotl. (1833) II. ii. 56 Quhen he and he went togidder to the blak Settirday..he drew him be the Kirk of Dalrye.
c1600 Diurnal of Remarkable Occurrents (1833) 44 Wpoun the tent day, being Sattirday, callit blak Sattirday, the Inglismen raisit thair camp.
1657 W. Mure Hist. Rowallane in Wks. (1898) II. 255 He died in battell at the Black Satterday in the year of our Lord 1547.
1828 T. C. Croker Fairy Legends & Trad. S. Ireland III. p. xvi He died..in the fatal battle of Pinkie, called ‘the Black Saturday’.
1867 J. Mackenzie Hist. Scotl. xlvi. 337 The gentlemen of Angus, who fell thick in the van of the Scottish host at Pinkie on Black Saturday.
1959 J. Kinsley & D. Lindsay Squyer Meldrum 14 Somerset's invasion in 1547, curiously designed to promote an alliance and ending in a further Scottish disaster on Black Saturday at Pinkie, did not mend matters.
1998 Evening News (Edinb.) (Nexis) 10 Aug. 8 The date of the battle, September 10, 1547, has passed into the annals of history as ‘Black Saturday’.
2. (A name given to) 4 August 1621, the date of the ratification by the Scottish Parliament of the articles of Perth, under which James VI attempted to impose Episcopalian practices on the Church of Scotland, and on which a severe storm occurred.
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1717 D. Defoe Mem. Church of Scotl. ii. 172 The Day got the Name of black Saturday, upon this Account [i.e. the storm], as well as on the Occasion of the black Work they had been about.
1827 J. Aikman tr. G. Buchanan Hist. Scotl. III. iv. 372 The Prelatic party likened it to the thundering at Mount Sinai, at the promulgation of the law. The common people called it the black Saturday.
1872 Chambers's Encycl. VII. 432/1 They were..ratified by the parliament on 4th August 1621—a day long remembered in Scotland as Black Saturday.
1921 T. Raleigh Ann. Church in Scotl. xvii. 212 On the 4th August, ‘Black Saturday’, a vote was taken.
1989 Brewer's Dict. Phr. & Fable (ed. 14) 122/1 Black Saturday, in Scotland 4 August 1621, because a violent storm occurred at the very moment the parliament was sitting to force episcopacy on the people.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1576