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^[1], 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.

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”)

 

Further reading

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “sceach”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN