List of English words of Irish origin
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This is a list of English words derived from the Irish language.
B
[edit | edit source]- banshee
- A mythical being (from bean sídhe, "fairy woman").
- bog
- A piece of wet spongy ground (from bogach, "bog", from bog, "soft").
- boreen
- A country lane (from bóithrín, diminutive of bóthar, "road").
- bother
- Possibly from bodhar, "deaf, bothered, confused", or from bodhraigh, "to deafen, to annoy". The earliest use appears in the writings of Irish authors Sheridan, Swift and Sterne.[1]
- brock
- A badger (from broc, "badger", or a cognate thereof).
- brat
- A dialectal word for an overall or apron (from brat, "cloth").
- brogan
- A kind of shoe (from brógan, diminutive of bróg, "shoe").
- brogue
- A kind of shoe (from bróg, "shoe").
C
[edit | edit source]- char
- A kind of fish. Possibly from ce(a)ra, "[blood] red",[2] referring to its pink-red underside.[3][4] This would also connect with its Welsh name torgoch, "red belly."[5]
- clabber, clauber
- Wet clay or mud; curdled milk (from clábar).
- clock
- O.Ir. clocc meaning "bell"; into Old High German as glocka, klocka[6] (whence Modern German Glocke) and back into English via Flemish;[7] cf also Welsh cloch but the giving language is Old Irish via the handbells used by early Irish missionaries.[6][8]
- colleen
- A girl, especially an Irish one (from cailín, "young woman").
- craic
- Fun, used in Ireland for fun/enjoyment. The word is actually English in origin; it entered into Irish from the English "crack" via Ulster Scots. The Gaelicised spelling craic was then reborrowed into English. The craic spelling, although preferred by many Irish people, has garnered some criticism as a faux-Irish word.[9]
- cross
- The ultimate source of this word is Latin crux, the Roman gibbet which became a symbol of Christianity. Some sources say the English wordform comes from Old Irish cros.[10][11] Other sources say the English comes from Old French crois[12] and others say it comes from Old Norse kross.[13]
D
[edit | edit source]- drisheen
- A kind of sausage (from drisín, "intestine").
- dulse
- An edible species of seaweed (from duileasc).[11]
E
[edit | edit source]- esker
- An elongated mound of post-glacial gravel (from eiscir).
F
[edit | edit source]- Fenian
- A member of a 19th-century Irish nationalist group (from Féni, a name for the people of Ireland).
- fiacre
- A small four-wheeled carriage for hire, a hackney-coach. Saint Fiacre was a seventh-century Irish-born saint who lived in France for most of his life. The English word fiacre comes from French.
G
[edit | edit source]- Gallowglass
- A Scottish mercenary in Ireland (from gallóglach, "foreign warrior").
- galore
- In abundance (from go leór, "sufficiently, enough").
- gob
- A mouth (from gob, "mouth, beak").
H
[edit | edit source]- hooligan
- One who takes part in rowdy behaviour and vandalism. Possibly from the Irish surname Hooligan, an anglicisation of Ó hUallacháin.
K
[edit | edit source]- keening
- Lamentation (from caoin, "to lament").
- kibosh
- Possibly from caidhp bháis, "cap of death", in reference either to the black cap worn by a judge when pronouncing a death sentence or to the gruesome method of execution called pitchcapping. Yiddish and Turkish etymologies have also been put forward.[14]
L
[edit | edit source]- leprechaun
- A mythical being (from luchorpán, "small body").
- limerick
- A kind of poem (from the place-name Limerick, an anglicisation of Luimneach).
- lough
- A lake, or arm of the sea (from loch).
P
[edit | edit source]- phoney
- Fake. Probably from the English fawney meaning "gilt brass ring used by swindlers", which is from Irish fáinne meaning "ring".[15]
- poteen
- Hooch, bootleg alcohol (from póitín).
S
[edit | edit source]- shamrock
- A clover, used as a symbol for Ireland (from seamróg).
- Shan Van Vocht
- A literary name for Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries (from sean-bhean bhocht, "poor old woman").
- shebeen
- An unlicensed house selling alcohol (possibly from seapín, diminutive of seapa, "shop").
- shillelagh
- A wooden club or cudgel made from a stout knotty stick with a large knob on the end (from sail éille meaning "a club with a strap").
- Sidhe
- The fairy folk of Ireland, from (aos) sídhe. See banshee.
- sleveen, sleiveen
- An untrustworthy or cunning person (from slíghbhín/slíbhín). Used in Ireland and Newfoundland (OED).
- slew
- A great amount (from sluagh, "a large number") .
- slob
- Mud (from slab). Note: the English words slobber and slobbery do not come from this; they come from Old English.[12]
- smithereens
- Small fragments, atoms. In phrases such as "to explode into smithereens". This is the word smithers (of obscure origin) with the Irish diminutive ending. Whether it derives from the modern Irish smidrín or is the source of this word is unclear.
T
[edit | edit source]- tilly
- Used to refer to an additional article or amount unpaid for by the purchaser, as a gift from the vendor (from tuilleadh, "supplement") . Perhaps more prevalent in Newfoundland than Ireland. James Joyce, in his Pomes Penyeach included a thirteenth poem as a bonus (as the book sold for a shilling, twelve poems would have come to a penny each), which he named "Tilly", for the extra sup of milk given to customers by milkmen in Dublin.[16]
- Tory
- Originally an Irish outlaw, probably from the Irish verb tóir meaning "pursue".
- turlough
- A seasonal lake (from tur loch, "dry lake").
W
[edit | edit source]- whiskey
- An alcoholic drink (from uisce beatha, "water of life").
See also
[edit | edit source]- Hiberno-English
- List of English words of Scottish Gaelic origin
- Lists of English words of Celtic origin
- Lists of English words of international origin
References
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- ^ a b Kluge, F. Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (1989) de Gruyter Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Hoad, TF (ed) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1993) Oxford University Press Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Online Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).; reprinted in Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Online Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper
- ^ a b Collins English Dictionary 21st Century Edition Harper Collins (2001) Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ a b An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language by Walter W. Skeat (1888) (900 pages). Downloadable at Archive.org.
- ^ An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English by Ernest Weekley (1921) (850 pages). Downloadable at Archive.org.
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Further reading
[edit | edit source]- Concise English-Irish Dictionary (Foras na Gaeilge, 2020, ISBN 978-1-85791-024-1)