Laigh Kirk
Laigh Kirk can mean "Low church" in general or the Church of Scotland in particular. Many place names and personal names are also derived from it.
As a common noun, kirk is the Scots and Scottish English word for 'church', attested as a noun from the 14th century onwards, but as an element in placenames much earlier. Both words, kirk and church, derive from the Koine Greek κυριακόν meaning Lord's , which was borrowed into the Germanic languages in late antiquity, possibly in the course of the Gothic missions. Whereas church displays Old English palatalisation, kirk is likely to be a loanword from Old Norse and thus has the original mainland Germanic consonants. Compare cognates: Icelandic & Faroese kirkja; Swedish kyrka; Norwegian & Danish kirke; German Kirche; Dutch kerk; West Frisian tsjerke; and borrowed into non-Germanic languages: Estonian kirik and Finnish kirkko.
