List of English words of Irish origin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Mergefrom.svg
 It has been suggested that List of English words of Old Irish origin be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)
Question book-new.svg
 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2007)

This is a list of English language words from the Celtic Irish language. For English words which originated in Ireland from other sources see Hiberno-English.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Dictionary abbreviations:

  • AHD: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, hosted at Bartleby.com
  • M-W: Meriam-Webster, hosted at webster.com
  • OED: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (7th ed. 1982)
  • RH: Random House Unabridged Dictionary, hosted at Dictionary.com

[edit] English words from the Irish language

alannah
from Irish a leinbh, "Oh, Child" (OED).
banshee
from Irish bainsídhe, "female fairy", and/or bean sidhe (M-W), "woman of the fairies" (AHD) or "...of a fairy mound" (RH). The Modern Irish word for woman is bean /bæn/ and síd(h) (or sí in modern spelling) is an Irish term referring to a 'fairy mound'. (See Sidhe.)
bard
(from bárd meaning "poet") a poet (OED).
Baltimore
town of the big house. From the Irish baile an tí mhor (pronounced "Baala on tee wore") baile meaning town, an tí meaning the house and mor / mhor meaning big (pronounced "more / wore")
bog
(from bogach meaning "marsh/peatland") a wetland (OED).
boreen
(from bóithrín meaning "small road") a narrow rural road.
brogues
(from bróg meaning "shoe") a type of shoe (OED).
brogue
A strong regional accent, especially an Irish one. Presumably used originally with reference to the footwear of speakers of the brogue (OED).
callow
A low-lying meadow by an Irish river, liable to be flooded; a water-meadow. Also in adjectival use. This is the same as the English callow (originally, 'bald', or 'unfeathered', and now often 'inexperienced'), itself cognate with the Irish calbh (bald), and is a particularly Irish usage (OED).
colleen
(from cailín meaning "young woman") a girl (usually referring to an Irish girl) (OED).
craic
fun, used in Ireland for fun/enjoyment, often when mixed with alcohol and/or music. 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 most of the Irish people, has garnered some criticism as a faux-Irish word.[1]
drum
(from drom/druim meaning "ridge") a ridge often separating two long narrow valleys; a long narrow ridge of drift or diluvial formation (OED).
drumlin
(from drom/druim with a diminutive) a small rounded hill of glacial formation, often seen in series (OED).
esker
(from eiscir) an elongated mound of post-glacial gravel, usually along a river valley (OED).
Fenian
(from Fianna meaning "semi-independent warrior band") a member of a 19th century Irish nationalist group (OED).
fiacre
a small four-wheeled carriage for hire, a hackney-coach. This derives from the Old Irish given name Fiacre (of uncertain meaning, perhaps 'battle king', perhaps 'little raven'). Saint Fiacre was a seventh century Irish saint for whom an inn in Paris that hired carriages was named. (OED)
galore
(from go leor meaning "til plenty") a lot (OED).
gob
(literally beak) mouth, though used in colloquial Irish more often to refer to a 'beaky' nose, i.e. a sticky-beak. Perhaps from Irish. (OED)
keen
(from caoinim meaning "I wail") to lament, to wail mournfully (OED).
kibosh (alternately, kybosh)
'To put the kybosh on' is to do for something, finish it off, or simply to end it or terminate it. The OED says the origin is obscure and possibly Hebrew Yiddish, but it may be from the Irish an chaip bháis, 'the cap of death'. a reference to the English practice of "Tar Capping" Irish rebel prisoners, pouring hot tar on their heads and then ripping the hardened tar off. [2] or cabáiste, cabbage [3].
leprechaun
elf, sprite (from leipreachán, from lu 'small' and corp 'body') (OED). An alternate source is leath bhrogán, "half-shoer", as the creature is often said to be a shoemaker by profession.
loch, lough
(from loch meaning "lake/inlet") a lake, or arm of the sea; this has entered English by various routes; one derivation is most obvious (but then the spelling is usually 'lough'), and in Anglo-Irish and in various northern English dialects the origin is Gaelic. The word loch is also used in Scottish Gaelic, and via that, Scots as well.
poteen
(from póitín, 'small póit' - póit is the feeling of being high from a drug like alcohol or tobacco, or even from eating too much candy) hooch, bootleg alcoholic drink (OED)
Puck, pook, pooka
possibly related to púca spook (a pooka, a hobgoblin, a bogey, a sprite), poker, an evil demon, a mischievous sprite or spirit; a hobgoblin; alternatively, the word has an obvious relationship to poc billy-goat, as in the famous Puck Fair in Kerry.
shamrock
from seamróg meaning "trefoil") a clover, used as a symbol for Ireland (OED).
Shan Van Vocht
from SeanBhean Bhocht (a poor old woman), "Poor Old Woman", a literary name for Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries
shebeen
(from síbín meaning "a mugful") unlicensed house selling alcohol (OED).
shillelagh
(from sailéala meaning "a club") a wooden club or cudgel made from a stout knotty stick with a large knob on the end.
Shanty
(from seán tí meaning "old house") an old house.
Sidhe
(pronounced 'she') the fairy folk of Ireland, from (aos) sídhe (OED). See banshee.
sleeveen
(also slieveen, sleiveen) an untrustworthy or cunning person, from the Irish slíbhín. Used in Ireland and Newfoundland. (OED)
slew
(from sluagh meaning "a large number") a great amount (OED). NB: as in a slew of new products, not as in slay.
slob
(from slab) mud (OED).
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 (OED).
tilly
(from tuilleadh meaning "a supplement") used in Ireland and places of Irish settlement such as Newfoundland to refer to an additional article or amount unpaid for by the purchaser, as a gift from the vendor (OED).
Tory
originally an Irish outlaw, probably from the Irish verb tóir, meaning "pursue" (OED).
whiskey
(from uisce beatha meaning "water of life") (OED).

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ó Muirithe, Diarmaid (1992-12-05). "The Words We Use". The Irish Times: p. 27. ; reprinted in Ó Muirithe, Diarmaid (October 2006). The Words We Use. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. pp. 154–5. ISBN 9780717140800. 
  2. ^ Blenkinsop, Stanley (August 30, 2004). "Who or what is the kybosh?; Questions Answered". The Times. 
  3. ^ O'Hescain, Donal Og (September 1, 2004). "Who or what is the kybosh?; Questions Answered". The Times. 
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Irish_origin"