fàinne

See also: fainne and fáinne

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish áinne, from Proto-Celtic *ānniyos (“ring”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁eh₂n- (“ring”). Possibly cognate with Latin ānus and Old Armenian անուր (anur). The initial f comes from a reinterpretation of áinne as fhàinne in leniting environments, leading to fàinne as a back-formation from this supposedly underlying form in nonleniting environments. Compare Irish fáinne.

Pronunciation

Noun

fàinne m or f (genitive singular fàinne, plural fàinneachan or fàinnean)

  1. ring
  2. coil
  3. ringlet

Derived terms

References

  1. ^ Borgstrøm, Carl Hj. (1937) The dialect of Barra in the Outer Hebrides, Oslo: Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap
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.