List of English words of Irish origin
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This is a list of English language words of Irish origin, including from the Celtic Irish language and the Germanic Hiberno-English and Ulster Scots languages. See also List of English words of Scottish Gaelic origin.
- banshee
- (from bean sí, 'fairy woman') wailing female spirit warning of death
- bard
- from "bard", one who practices one of the old arts of poetry/music.
- ben
- (from Gaelic beann) a mountain peak. This is common in Scotland (Ben Nevis, Ben Lomond) but is also used in Ireland, for instance, the Twelve Bens in Connemara or Ben Bulben in Sligo, beloved of William Butler Yeats ('Under bare Ben Bulben's head, in Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid...').
- bog
- (from bog, 'soft') Bog, a piece of wet spongy ground
- boreen
- (from bóithrín) a small country road
- boycott
- Originates from the 1870s. Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, an agent working for an English absentee landlord in County Mayo, provoked the ire of locals by refusing to lower their rents. The Irish Land League, an organisation established to win reform of the system of landholdings, suggested the locals refuse to have any dealings with Captain Boycott. The idea worked and his name quickly became a byline for collective and organized ostracism
- brogue
- (from bróg, a shoe) A type of shoe.
- brogue
- A strong regional accent, especially an Irish one. This may be related to 'brogue' for shoe, but how is obscure.
- clan
- In Scottish, extended family; in Irish it refers to a nuclear family. Ultimately from Latin planta 'sprout, shoot, scion, slip' (cf. stirps 'stock, stem, race'). Goidelic substituted k for p, as caisg, corcur < Latin pascha, purpur.
- callow
- A low-lying meadow by an Irish river, liable to be flooded; a water-meadow. Also in adjectival use. This is derived from the English callow (originally, 'bald', or 'unfeathered', and now often 'inexperienced') but is a particularly Irish usage.
- colleen
- (from cailín) girl (usually referring to an Irish girl)
- crack
- fun. Although, strictly speaking, not a word of Irish origin, it is often spelled craic in an Irish style by those who mistakenly believe it is an Irish language word. It originates in the north of England and Scotland. Nothing whatsoever to do with the drug crack.
- crag
- (from carraig, 'rock') A steep or precipitous rugged rock.
- drum
- (from droim, 'back') A ridge often separating two long narrow valleys; a long narrow ridge of drift or diluvial formation.
- drumlin
- (from droim, 'back' with a diminutive) A small rounded hill of glacial formation, often seen in series.
- eejit
- Hiberno-English pronunciation of idiot. A fool.
- esker
- (from eiscir) an elongated mound of post-glacial gravel, usually along a river valley.
- galore
- plenty, a lot. From go leor, Irish for plenty.
- gob
- (literally beak) mouth
- gobshite
- a fool, one held in contempt. See eejit.
- keen
- (from caoin, 'to cry') to lament, to wail mournfully
- kibosh
- 'To put the kibosh on' is to do for something, finish it off. The OED says the origin is obscure and possibly Arabic or Yiddish, but it may be from the Irish an cháip bháis, 'the cap of death'.
- loch
- (from loch) A lake, or arm of the sea; this has entered English by various routes; the Scottish derivation is most obvious (but in Ireland the spelling is usually 'lough'), and in Anglo-Irish and in various northern English dialects the origin is Irish.
- leprechaun
- elf, sprite (from leipreachán)
- mot
- In Dublin, 'my girlfriend' would be 'me mot'. As the 't' is not strongly pronounced, this sounds as if it might be related to the Irish maith for 'good' (maybe via cailín maith, 'good girl') but is actually a preservation of an English word (mainly for 'harlot') with possible French, Dutch, and Romany origins.
- poteen
- (from poitín, 'small pot') hooch, bootleg alcoholic drink
- phoney
- (from fáinne, ring) fake (term originating from Irish immigrants in US referring to fake gold rings illegally marketed there)
- quiz
- word allegedly invented by a Richard Daly, a Dublin theatre owner, in the late 18th century as result of a bet that he would introduce a new word to the English language overnight.
- shebeen
- an illicit drinking place, from síbín, meaning an illicit whiskey.
- shenanigans: A deceitful trick
- shite
- Hiberno-English pronunciation of shit.
- smashing
- (from is maith é sin) that's good
- slob
- (from slaba) lazy person
- slogan
- (from sluagh-ghairm) troop-cry / war-cry. It source in English may well be Scottish Gaelic.
- slew
- (from slua) throng, as in a slew of new products, not as in slay.
- smithereens
- (from smidiríní) little pieces
- tilly
- (from tuilleadh, 'an additional quantity, supplement') used in Ireland and places of Irish settlement such as Newfoundland to refer to an additional article or amount unpaid for by the purchaser, as a gift from the vendor.
- Tory
- (from tóraí) outlaw, robber
- whiskey
- (from uisce beatha, 'water of life'). In Scotland, the word is spelled whisky.
See also
- Irish words used in the English language
- Lists of English words of international origin
- The category of words with Irish derivations at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sibling project