List of English words of Irish origin

For English words that originated in Ireland from other sources, see Hiberno-English.

This is a list of English language words from the Celtic Irish language, ("Irish", The Scots dialect is Gaelic)

banshee
(from Irish bainsídhe/beansídhe, "female fairy") (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.) However, in traditional Irish mythology a banshee is seen as an omen of death.
bog
(from bogach meaning "marsh/peatland") a wetland (OED).
boreen
(from bóithrín meaning "small road") a narrow rural road in Ireland.
boycott
abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. (from Captain Charles Boycott, a 19th-century British land agent)
brat
a cloak or overall - now only in regional dialects (from Old Irish bratt meaning "cloak, cloth" OED)
brogues
(from bróg meaning "shoe") a type of shoe (OED).
brogue
A strong regional accent, especially an Irish or Scots one. Presumably used originally with reference to the footwear of speakers of the brogue (OED).
clabber, clauber
(from clábar) wet clay or mud; curdled milk.
clock
O.Ir. clocc meaning "bell"; into Old High German as glocka, klocka[1] (whence Modern German Glocke) and back into English via Flemish;[2] cf also Welsh cloch but the giving language is Old Irish via the hand-bells used by early Irish missionaries.[1][3]
colleen
(from cailín meaning "young woman") a girl (usually referring to an Irish girl) (OED).
corrie
a cirque or mountain lake, of glacial origin. (OED) Irish or Scots Gaelic coire 'Cauldron, hollow'
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.[4]
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.[5][6] Other sources say the English comes from Old French crois[7] and others say it comes from Old Norse kross.[8]
drum (ridge), drumlin
(from drom/druim meaning "ridge") a ridge often separating two long narrow valleys; a long narrow ridge of drift or diluvial formation. Drumlin is a linguistic diminutive of drum, and it means a small rounded hill of glacial formation, often seen in series (OED). A landscape of many Drumlins occurs in some parts of Ireland (including counties Cavan and Armagh). Drumlin is an established technical word in geology, but drum is almost never used.
drisheen
(from drisín or drúishin).
dulse
[6] (from Old Irish duilesc).
esker
(from eiscir) an elongated mound of post-glacial gravel, usually along a river valley (OED). Esker is a technical word in geology.
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. 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. (OED)
Gallowglass
(from gallóglach) a Scottish Gaelic mercenary soldier in Ireland between mid 13th and late 16th centuries.
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)
griskin
(from griscín) a lean cut of meat from the loin of a pig.
hooligan
(from the Irish family name Ó hUallacháin, anglicised as O'Houlihan) one who takes part in rowdy behaviour and vandalism.
keening
(from caoinim (Irish pronunciation: [ˈkˠiːnʲimʲ]) meaning "I wail") to lament, to wail mournfully (OED). No relation to "keen" = eager.
kibosh, kybosh
to finish, to put an end to: "That's put the kibosh on it". The OED says the origin is obscure and possibly Yiddish. Other sources,[9] suggest that it may be from the Irish an chaip bháis meaning "the cap of death" (a reference to the "black cap" worn by a judge passing sentence of capital punishment, or perhaps to the gruesome method of execution called pitchcapping);[10] or else somehow connected with "bosh", from Turkish "boş" (empty). (Caip bháis - pronounced as kibosh - is also a word in Irish for a candle-snuffer.)
Leprechaun
(from leipreachán', based on Old Irish luchorpán, from lu 'small' + corp 'body' (ODE).
Limerick
(from Luimneach)
lough
(from loch) a lake, or arm of the sea. According to the OED, the spelling "lough" was originally a separate word with a similar meaning but different pronunciation, perhaps from Old Northumbrian: this word became obsolete, effectively from the 16th century, but in Anglo-Irish its spelling was retained for the word newly borrowed from Irish.
phoney
(probably from the English fawney meaning "gilt brass ring used by swindlers", which is from Irish fainne meaning "ring") fake.[11]
poteen
(from póitín) hooch, bootleg alcoholic drink (OED)
shamrock
(from seamróg) a clover, used as a symbol for Ireland (OED).
Shan Van Vocht
(from sean-bhean bhocht meaning "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.
Sidhe
(Irish pronunciation: [ʃiː]) the fairy folk of Ireland, from (aos) sídhe (OED). See banshee.
sleveen, sleiveen
(from slíghbhín/slíbhín) an untrustworthy or cunning person. Used in Ireland and Newfoundland (OED).
slew
(from sluagh meaning "a large number") a great amount (OED). Note: as in a slew of new products, not as in slay.
slob
(from slab) mud (OED). Note: the English words slobber and slobbery do not come from this; they come from Old English.[7]
slogan
(from sluagh-ghairm meaning "a battle-cry used by Gaelic clans") Meaning of a word or phrase used by a specific group is metaphorical and first attested from 1704.[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 (OED).
tilly
(from tuilleadh meaning "a supplement") used to refer to an additional article or amount unpaid for by the purchaser, as a gift from the vendor (OED). 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.[13]
tory
originally an Irish outlaw, probably from the Irish verb tóir meaning "pursue" (OED).
turlough
a seasonal lake in limestone area (OED) Irish tur loch 'dry lake'
whiskey
(from uisce beatha meaning "water of life") (OED).

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Kluge, F. Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (1989) de Gruyter ISBN 3-11-006800-1
  2. ↑ Hoad, TF (ed) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1993) Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-283098-8
  3. ↑ Online Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper
  4. ↑ 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 978-0-7171-4080-0.
  5. ↑ Online Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper
  6. 1 2 Collins English Dictionary 21st Century Edition Harper Collins (2001) ISBN 0-00-472529-8
  7. 1 2 An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language by Walter W. Skeat (1888) (900 pages). Downloadable at Archive.org.
  8. ↑ An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English by Ernest Weekley (1921) (850 pages). Downloadable at Archive.org.
  9. ↑ "kibosh". Etymology online. Retrieved 2010-02-20.
  10. ↑ Share, Bernard. Slanguage, A Dictionary of Irish Slang.
  11. ↑ Cohen, Paul S (2011). "The genuine etymological story of phone(e)y". Transactions of the Philological Society. 109 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1111/j.1467-968X.2011.01247.x.
  12. ↑ Online Etymology Dictionary
  13. ↑ Fargnoli, A. Nicholas; Gillespie, Michael Patrick (1995). Critical Companion to James Joyce: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. p. 130. ISBN 0-8160-6232-3. Retrieved July 2, 2014.
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