meirg

meirg

Irish

Etymology

From Old Irish meirc, from Proto-Celtic *mergī (“rust, corrosion”), from Proto-Indo-European *merǵ- (“to be wet, withered”). Cognate with Welsh merydd (“stagnant”), Breton mergl (“rust”), Middle High German murc (“withered”), Russian моро́з (moróz, “frost”) and Albanian mardhë (“frost”).[1]

Pronunciation

• (Munster, Connacht) IPA^(key): /ˈmʲɛɾʲɪɟ/
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /ˈmʲɪɾʲɪɟ/

Noun

meirg f (genitive singular meirge)

1. rust
2. irritability, crustiness

Declension

Declension of meirg

Second declension

Bare forms (no plural form of this noun) Case Singular Nominative meirg Vocative a mheirg Genitive meirge Dative meirg

Forms with the definite article Case Singular Nominative an mheirg Genitive na meirge Dative leis an meirg don mheirg

Mutation

Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Eclipsis
meirg	mheirg	not applicable
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

1. Matasović, Ranko (2009), “*mergī”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 267

Further reading

• “meirg”, in Historical Irish Corpus, 1600–1926, Royal Irish Academy
• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “1 meirg, meirc”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Dinneen, Patrick S. (1904), “meirg”, in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, 1st edition, Dublin: Irish Texts Society, page 479
• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977), “meirg”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• Quiggin, E. C. (1906) A Dialect of Donegal, Cambridge University Press, page 44
• Sjoestedt, M. L. (1931) Phonétique d’un parler irlandais de Kerry (in French), Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux, page 24

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Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish meirc, from Proto-Celtic *mergī (“rust, corrosion”), from Proto-Indo-European *merǵ- (“to be wet, withered”). Cognate with Welsh merydd (“stagnant”), Middle High German murc (“withered”), Russian моро́з (moróz, “frost”) and Albanian mardhë (“frost”).[1]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmeɾʲekʲ/

Noun

meirg f (genitive singular meirge, no plural)

1. rust, corrosion

Verb

meirg (past mheirg, future meirgidh, verbal noun meirg, past participle meirgte)

1. rust, corrode

   Tha an rothair agam a' meirg sa gharaids. ― My bicycle is rusting in the garage.

Derived terms

• meirg-umha (“verdigris”)
• meirg-dhìonach (“rust-proof”)
• meirgeach (“rusty”)
• meirgte (“rusted, rusty, covered in rust”)

Mutation

Scottish Gaelic mutation
Radical	Lenition
meirg	mheirg
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

1. Matasović, Ranko (2009), “*mergī”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 267