sceach

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Irish sceach

Noun

sceach (plural sceaches)

  1. A whitethorn, hawthorn or similar bush.
    • 2019, “I love my juggernaut”, in The Pothole Song Album‎, performed by Richie Kavanagh:
      I'm in the county Offaly and I'm awfully sorry now. I broke the mirrors of me cab and I'd like to tell you how. With sceachs, boughs and bushes rubbing off me load, I wish the county council would trim along the road.

Irish

Alternative forms
  • scéach

Etymology

From Old Irish scé (“thornbush, whitethorn”), sometimes declined as an -iā-stem or a dental stem (genitive sciad), but also as a guttural stem, forming the genitive sciach. The dental stem may be original, judging from Welsh ysbyddad (“hawthorn, thornbush”), in which case the ancestor was Proto-Celtic *skʷiyats.[1][2]

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): [ʃcax]

Noun

sceach f (genitive singular sceiche, nominative plural sceacha)

  1. whitethorn, hawthorn
  2. more generally, brier, bramble-bush, thornbush
  3. prickly, quarrelsome, person

Declension
Declension of sceach

Second declension

Bare forms

Case Singular Plural
Nominative sceach sceacha
Vocative a sceach a sceacha
Genitive sceiche sceach
Dative sceach
sceich (archaic, dialectal)		 sceacha

Forms with the definite article

Case Singular Plural
Nominative an sceach na sceacha
Genitive na sceiche na sceach
Dative leis an sceach
leis an sceich (archaic, dialectal)

don sceach
don sceich (archaic, dialectal)

 leis na sceacha

Synonyms
  • (whitethorn, hawthorn): sceach gheal
  • (whitethorn): uath (literary)
  • (brier): sceach thalún
  • (prickly, quarrelsome, person): sceachaire

Derived terms
  • sceach i mbéal bearna (“stop-gap”)
  • sceach i scornach (“frog in the throat”)
  • sceachach (“full of hawthorns, of thorn-bushes; briery, brambly”, adjective)
  • sceachóir (“haw”)
  • sceachra (“thorns, brambles”)

References
  1. R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “ysbyddad”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies
  2. Thurneysen, Rudolf (1940, reprinted 2017) D. A. Binchy and Osborn Bergin, transl., A Grammar of Old Irish, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, →ISBN, § 320, page 204

Further reading
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