lobur
Old Irish
Etymology
Cognate to Welsh llwfr (“cowardly”) and Middle Breton loffr (whence Breton lovr). Stifter believes that the word is a native word from Proto-Celtic *luɸros, from Proto-Indo-European *lewp- (“to peel, strip”), cognate with Ancient Greek λυπρός (luprós, “distressing, wretched”).[1] The word later came to be associated with Latin lepra (“leprosy”) and developed the sense “leper”, but the two words are etymologically unrelated.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [ˈl͈ovur]
Adjective
lobur (comparative lobru)
- feeble
- c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 4a27
- I⟨s⟩ samlid trá is lobur ar n-irnigde-ni, mat réte frecndirci gesme, et nín·fortéit-ni in spirut oc suidiu.
- Thus then our way of praying is feeble if present things are what we ask for, and the spirit does not help us with this.
- c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 4a27
Declension
| o/ā-stem | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Masculine | Feminine | Neuter |
| Nominative | lobur | lobur | lobur |
| Vocative | lobur | ||
| Accusative | lobur | lobur | |
| Genitive | lobur | lobrae | lobur |
| Dative | lobur | lobur | lobur |
| Plural | Masculine | Feminine/neuter | |
| Nominative | lobur | lobra | |
| Vocative | lobru lobra† | ||
| Accusative | lobru lobra† | ||
| Genitive | lobur | ||
| Dative | lobraib | ||
| Notes | † not when substantivized | ||
Descendants
- Middle Irish: lobar
- Irish: lobhar
- Scottish Gaelic: lobhar
- ⇒ Manx: lourane
Mutation
| Old Irish mutation | ||
|---|---|---|
| Radical | Lenition | Nasalization |
| lobur also llobur after a proclitic | lobur pronounced with /l(ʲ)-/ | unchanged |
| Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs. | ||
References
- Stifter, David (2019), “Old Irish lobur ‘weak, sick’”, in Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, volume 66, issue 1, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, DOI:, ISSN 1865-889X, pages 177–178
Further reading
- G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “lobur, lobor”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language