Scotch mist

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Scotch mist (countable and uncountable, plural Scotch mists)

1. (UK) A cold and penetrating mist, verging on rain.
2. (UK, dialect, chiefly Lancashire and Yorkshire, idiomatic) Something that is hard to find or does not exist.
   1. (World War II) Something imaginary, nonexistant, or overlooked.
   • 1945, Eric H Partridge, “Words Get Their Wings”, in College English‎^[1], volume 7, number 1, page 29:

     Scotch mist, the R.A.F. term for something imaginary. […] The joke of it is that Scotch mist is as wetting as English rain.

3. A drink of Scotch whisky served with ice and lemon peel.
4. The perennial flowering plant Galium sylvaticum.

   Synonym: wood bedstraw