càil

See also: cail and cáil

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish cáil (“quality, property”), from Latin quālitās.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /kʰaːl/

Noun

càil f (genitive singular càile, plural càilean)

  1. appetite, disposition, desire
  2. appearance
  3. (chiefly Lewis, Harris, Skye) anything, (negative context) nothing
    Synonyms: dad, func, heat, sgath, sìon, stuth
    Chan fhaca mi càil as ùr.
    I didn't see anything new. or: I saw nothing new.
  4. (colloquial, chiefly Lewis, Harris, Skye) nothing
    • 1985, Calum and Rory MacDonald, “Air a' Chuan”, in Heartland, performed by Runrig, track 4:
      Càil ach muir, tonnan is cuan
      Nothing but sea, waves and ocean

Mutation

Mutation of càil
radical lenition
càil chàil

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Scottish Gaelic.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.