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<DIV>I find in this book (1834) by Walter Scott, which contains notes etc. to
his works, there is a glossary: boss = hollow</DIV>
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title=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HR5RAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA10-PA3&dq=%22boss%22+%22walter+scott%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi85cyiqvzoAhWaRBUIHerpBtsQ6AEIbjAI#v=onepage&q=boss&f=false
href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HR5RAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA10-PA3&dq=%22boss%22+%22walter+scott%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi85cyiqvzoAhWaRBUIHerpBtsQ6AEIbjAI#v=onepage&q=boss&f=false">https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HR5RAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA10-PA3&dq=%22boss%22+%22walter+scott%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi85cyiqvzoAhWaRBUIHerpBtsQ6AEIbjAI#v=onepage&q=boss&f=false</A></DIV>
<DIV>I haven’t found where he used the word in this sense.</DIV>
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<DIV>Stuart</DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=vwoolf@lists.osu.edu>Jeremy
Hawthorn via Vwoolf</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, April 22, 2020 1:43 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=vwoolf@lists.osu.edu>vwoolf</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [Vwoolf] boss of the back</DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<P>My colleague Laurence Davies, co-editor of Conrad's Collected Letters and
amazingly well informed about almost everything, writes this:</P>
<P>"Could boss mean the small of the back? According to the Scots Dialect
Dictionary (ed Alexander Warrock), the noun 'boss' can denote a hollow. (The
online OED records this usage as a Scoticism -- sense 10 -- but records it as an
adjective.)"</P>
<P>Did Woolf have anyone in her circle of friends who might make use a Scottish
expression / term?</P>
<P>This seems the most promising lead so far for the <I>Jacob's Room</I>
puzzle.</P>
<P>Jeremy H<BR></P><PRE class=moz-signature cols="72">--
Jeremy Hawthorn
Emeritus Professor
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
7491 Trondheim
Norway</PRE>
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