cathair

From cat +‎ hair.

cathair (countable and uncountable, plural cathairs)

1. The hair of a cat.
   • 1968, Benedict Kiely, Dogs Enjoy the Morning, Penguin Books, published 1971, page 18:

     A pimpled chin, dark with cathairs, a mouthful of irregular teeth, were visible below helmet and goggles.

   • 1993, Allen Warfield, Al Brooks, Effective Telemarketing: How to Sell Over the Telephone, page 111:

     How can you tell a cat owner? all the little claw marks on their back. . .Or by the cathair that sticks to their suit.

   • 1993, Lilian Jackson Braun, The Cat Who Wasn't There:

     The conscientious Mrs. Fulgrove was driving away as he pulled into the barnyard, and he waved to her; the woman's scowl indicated that she had worked overtime because of the vast amount of cathair everywhere.

   • 1994, Lilian Jackson Braun, The Cat Who Blew the Whistle, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →ISBN, page 81:

     The closed-door policy, he liked to explain, kept the cats out of his hair and the cathairs out of his typewriter.

   • 2000, Tamaqua: Volume Seven Issue One, page 75:

     Meditate on the steady drone and the rocking of the back and forth vacuum dance you do as you suck up the cathair, the ashes, the seeds, the stray leaves.

   • 2000, Nimrod International Journal - Volume 44, page 128:

     Cat likes to brush against it and sun on the deck chair, the cushion is a mat of gray cathair.

From Irish cathair.

cathair (plural cathairs)

1. An ancient Irish fortification of stone or earthwork.
   • 1848, William F[rederick] Wakeman, “Raths or Duns”, in Archæologia Hibernica. A Hand-book of Irish Antiquities, Pagan and Christian: Especially of Such as Are Easy of Access from the Irish Metropolis., Dublin: James M^cGlashan, […]. William S. Orr & Co. […] London, part I (Pagan Antiquities), page 47:

     Several cathairs which we have examined are not circular in plan, but appear to have been formed to suit the contour of the eminence upon which they stand; and others are of an oval form.

   • 1977, “The Dúns of Aran”, in A World of Stone: Life, Folklore and Legends of the Aran Islands, O’Brien Educational, published 1980, →ISBN, page 28:

     There were probably other cathairs and duns on the Aran Islands which were not as sturdily built or not as well preserved as those that survived.

   • 1992, Theresa McDonald, Achill: 5000 B.C. to 1900 A.D.: Archaeology, History, Folklore, →ISBN, page 128:

     ‘On this island there are three cyclopean cathairs but their stones have been nearly all removed to build the modern little houses which are nearly in as rude a style as the Cahirs ever were. […]’

• Cathari, Chaitra, chirata, cithara

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɑhəɾʲ/^[1], /ˈkahəɾʲ/^[2][3][4]
• (Cois Fharraige) IPA^(key): /kaɾʲ/, [kaːɾʲ]^[5]
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /ˈkahæɾʲ/^[6] (as if spelled catháir)

From Old Irish cathair,^[7] from Proto-Celtic *katrixs (“fortification”).

cathair f (genitive singular cathrach or caithreach, nominative plural cathracha or caithreacha)

1. city
2. (historical) enclosed church establishment; monastic city
3. (archaeology) circular stone fort, a ringfort
4. dwelling(-place); bed, lair

• Alternative genitive singular: caithreach
• Alternative plural: caithreacha

cathair f (genitive singular caithre or caithreach)

1. alternative form of caithir (“down, pubic hair”)

• Alternative genitive singular: caithreach

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “cathair”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• Dinneen, Patrick S. (1904) “caṫair”, in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, 1st edition, Dublin: Irish Texts Society, page 121
• de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1959) “cathair”, in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm
• “cathair”, in New English-Irish Dictionary, Foras na Gaeilge, 2013–2025

• caithir, cathir

From Proto-Celtic *katrixs (“fortification”), an unusual formation; possibly cognate with Old English hēaþor (“enclosure, prison”) or Serbo-Croatian kȍtar (“administrative unit, province”), and the a-vocalism suggests that all three could have been borrowed from a non-Indo-European substrate.^[1] Pokorny instead derives it from Proto-Indo-European *kat- (“to link or weave together; chain, net”), with Latin casa as another possible cognate.^[2]

• IPA^(key): /ˈkaθərʲ/, [ˈkaθɨrʲ]

cathair f (genitive cathrach, nominative plural cathraig)

1. stone enclosure, fortress, castle; dwelling
2. monastic settlement, enclosure; monastery, convent
   • c. 800, Broccán’s Hymn, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, p. 328, ll. 9–10:

     Nī bo fri óigthea acher   cāinbói fri lobru trúagu:
     for maig arutacht cathir   dollaid rosnāde slúagu.

     She was not harsh to guests: gentle was she to the wretched sick:
     on a plain she built a convent: may it protect hosts into the Kingdom!

3. fortified city, city
   • c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 13^b1:

     (do·adb)adar in taidbsiu hi siu tra do(naib) coic cetaib […] ro·bói isin chaithir isind aimsir sin

     this appearance, then, is manifested to the five hundred […] that was in the city at that time

   • c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 67^d14

     Amal rund·gab slíab Sión andes ⁊ antúaid du⟨n⟩ chath⟨raig⟩ dïa dítin, sic rund·gabsat ar ṅdá thoíb du dítin ar n-inmedónach-ni.

     As Mount Sion is located on the south and the north of the city to protect it, so are our two sides there to protect our insides.

• cathrar (“citizen”)

• Irish: cathair
• Manx: caayr
• Scottish Gaelic: cathair

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “1 cathair”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

• IPA^(key): /ˈkʰahɪɾʲ/

From Old Irish cathaír (“chair”), from Latin cathēdra, from Ancient Greek καθέδρα (kathédra). Cognate with Irish cathaoir.

cathair f (genitive singular cathrach, plural cathraichean)

1. chair, seat, bench, throne

• cathair ghàirdeanach (“armchair”)
• àrd-chathair, breas-chathair, cathair-rìgh, cathair-rìoghail, rìgh-chathair, torr-chathair (“throne”)

From Old Irish cathair.

cathair f (genitive singular cathrach, plural cathraichean)

1. town, city

• catharra (“civil; civic, public”, adjective)

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

cathair f (genitive singular cathrach, plural cathraichean)

1. gig (two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage)
2. bed (of any garden stuff)
3. stock, colewort, cabbage
4. plot (of land)
5. (obsolete) guard, sentinel, warder

• Edward Dwelly (1911) “cathair”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary]‎^[1], 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “cathaír”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “1 cathair”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language