rígain

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *rīganī.

Noun

rígain f

queen
- 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. 65^d13
  .i. co n-eperthae as comdiu dia rígain in rí.
  And it should be said that the king is a master to his queen.
- c. 808, Félire Oengusso, Prologue, line 105; republished as Whitley Stokes, transl., Félire Óengusso Céli Dé: The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, Harrison & Sons, 1905:
  Hirúath cona rígain, las·rort co lín ilach; nír at·gab, réim calad, talam na nem ninach.
  [King] Herod [the Great] with his queen, along with whom he was slain to much rejoicing; neither the earth nor the heavenly heavens received him (a rather rough fate!).
- c. 808, Félire Oengusso, July 11; republished as Whitley Stokes, transl., Félire Óengusso Céli Dé: The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, Harrison & Sons, 1905:
  La martrai rígnae, Eufemiae slógdae; Benedicht, balc ágae, macc cráibdech Con-lógae.
  With the martyrdom of the queen, Euphemia the hostful, [is also commemorated] Benedict, a strong pillar and devout son of Cú Lógae.

Inflection

Feminine ī-stem
	singular	dual	plural
nominative	rígain^L	rígain^L	rígnai^H
vocative	rígain^L	rígain^L	rígnai^H
accusative	rígnai^N	rígain^L	rígnai^H
genitive	rígnae^H	rígnae^L	rígnae^N
dative	rígnai^L	rígnaib	rígnaib

Initial mutations of a following adjective:

^H = triggers aspiration
^L = triggers lenition
^N = triggers nasalization

Coordinate terms

rí (“king”)

Descendants

Middle Irish: rígan
- Irish: ríon, banríon
- Manx: rein, benrein
- Scottish Gaelic: rìghinn, banrìghinn, rìbhinn

Mutation

Mutation of *rígain*
radical	lenition	nasalization
rígain also rrígain in h-prothesis environments	rígain pronounced with /ɾʲ-/	rígain also rrígain

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in Old Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Further reading

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