imm-
Old Irish
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Proto-Celtic *ambi-, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂m̥bʰi.
Prefix
imm-
- around, about
- indicates a reciprocal relationship; always unstressed and followed by a (usually plural) infixed pronoun: each other, one another
- imm- (“each other”) + -un·cúalammar (“we have heard (of) ourselves”) → immun·cúalammar (“we have heard (of) each other”)
- intensive prefix for adjectives and nouns: very, super-
Usage notes
The reciprocal sense, which is always unstressed, loses its initial i after ní (“not”): nímun·accammar (“we have not seen each other”) (also written ní ’mun·accammar by some editors).
Derived terms
Old Irish terms prefixed with imm-
Related terms
- imb (“around, about”, preposition)
Descendants
- Irish: im-
Further reading
- Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “imb”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
- Thurneysen, Rudolf (1940) [1909] D. A. Binchy and Osborn Bergin, transl., A Grammar of Old Irish, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, translation of Handbuch des Alt-Irischen (in German), →ISBN, § 841, pages 516–18; reprinted 2017