List of English words of Irish origin

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This is a list of English language words from the Celtic Irish language. For English words which originated in Ireland from other sources see Hiberno-English.

Dictionary abbreviations:

• AHD: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, hosted at Bartleby.com
• M-W: Meriam-Webster, hosted at webster.com
• OED: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (7th ed. 1982)
• RH: Random House Unabridged Dictionary, hosted at Dictionary.com

English words from the Irish language

alannah

from Irish a leinbh, "Oh, Child" (OED).

banshee

from Irish bainsídhe, "female fairy", and/or bean sidhe (M-W), "woman of the fairies" (AHD) or "...of a fairy mound" (RH). The Modern Irish word for woman is bean /bæn/ and síd(h) (or sí in modern spelling) is an Irish term referring to a 'fairy mound'. (See Sidhe.)

bard

a poet. From Irish bárd. Originally from Old Celtic *bardos (OED).

bog

(from bogach, 'a bog', or bog, 'soft') a piece of wet spongy ground (OED).

boreen

(from bóithrín) a small country road

brogues

(from bróg, a shoe) A type of shoe (OED).

brogue

A strong regional accent, especially an Irish one. Presumably used originally with reference to the footwear of speakers of the brogue (OED).

callow

A low-lying meadow by an Irish river, liable to be flooded; a water-meadow. Also in adjectival use. This is the same as the English callow (originally, 'bald', or 'unfeathered', and now often 'inexperienced'), itself cognate with the Irish calbh (bald), and is a particularly Irish usage (OED).

colleen

(from cailín, young woman) girl (usually referring to an Irish girl) (OED).

Clann

from Modern Irish clann which comes from an Old Irish word cland meaning 'offspring' or 'children of family'. The word came into use as an English word around 1425.

craic (crack)

fun, used in Ireland for fun/enjoyment, often when mixed with alcohol and/or music. The word came to Ireland from Ulster or Scots dialects of English. The modern Gaelicized spelling craic, although preferred by most of the Irish people, is sometimes controversial, decried as faux-Irish.^[1]

dig

to understand, as stereotypically used by American hippies, among others. From the Irish 'tuig', to understand. twig come to understand is of the same origin.

Dork from the Irish dorc, meaning a small lumpish person

drum

(from drom, 'back') A ridge often separating two long narrow valleys; a long narrow ridge of drift or diluvial formation (OED).

drumlin

(from drom, 'back' with a diminutive) A small rounded hill of glacial formation, often seen in series (OED).

esker

(from eiscir) an elongated mound of post-glacial gravel, usually along a river valley (OED).

Fenian

A member of a 19th century Irish nationalist group. From Old Irish fénne, the name of an ancient Irish people, but confused with fíann, a legendary band of warriors (OED).

fiacre

a small four-wheeled carriage for hire, a hackney-coach. This derives from the Old Irish given name Fiacre (of uncertain meaning, perhaps 'battle king', perhaps 'little raven'). Saint Fiacre was a seventh century Irish saint for whom an inn in Paris that hired carriages was named. (OED)

galore

plenty, a lot. From go leor, Irish for to sufficiency. (OED)

gob

(literally beak) mouth, though used in colloquial Irish more often to refer to a 'beaky' nose, i.e. a sticky-beak. Perhaps from Irish. (OED)

Jazz from the Northern/Western Irish i dteas meaning within heat.

keen

(from caoinim, 'I wail') to lament, to wail mournfully (OED).

kibosh (alternately, kybosh)

'To put the kybosh on' is to do for something, finish it off, or simply to end it or terminate it. The OED says the origin is obscure and possibly Hebrew Yiddish, but it may be from the Irish an chaip bháis, 'the cap of death' ^[2] or cabáiste, cabbage ^[3].

leprechaun

elf, sprite (from leipreachán, from lu 'small' and corp 'body') (OED). An alternate source is leath bhrogán, "half-shoer", as the creature is often said to be a shoemaker by profession.

loch

(from loch) A lake, or arm of the sea; this has entered English by various routes; one derivation is most obvious (but then the spelling is usually 'lough'), and in Anglo-Irish and in various northern English dialects the origin is Gaelic. The word loch is also used in Scottish Gaelic, and via that, Scots as well.

Phoney: From fáinne (ring), used in the United States and Canada. (Possibly from the English cant expression fawney rig (1754), a swindle in which a brass ring or other piece of jewelry is dropped before a victim. The cheat then retrieves the expensive-looking ring and offers it to the victim at a supposedly bargain price.)

poteen

(from póitín, 'small póit' - póit is the feeling of being high from a drug like alcohol or tobacco, or even from eating too much candy) hooch, bootleg alcoholic drink (OED)

Puck, pook, pooka

possibly related to púca spook (a pooka, a hobgoblin, a bogey, a sprite), poker, an evil demon, a mischievous sprite or spirit; a hobgoblin; alternatively, the word has an obvious relationship to poc billy-goat, as in the famous Puck Fair in Kerry.

shamrock

from seamróg ('trefoil'), a clover, used as a symbol for Ireland (OED); ultimately the word is from Arabic, and was introduced with the plant in the early modern period.

Shan Van Vocht

from SeanBhean Bhocht (a poor old woman), "Poor Old Woman", a literary name for Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries

shebeen

unlicensed house selling alcohol, from Irish síbín, a mugful (OED).

shillelagh sailéala a club kame from willow 

a wooden club or cudgel made from a stout knotty stick with a large knob on the end

Sidhe

(pronounced 'she') the fairy folk of Ireland, from (aos) sídhe (OED). See banshee.

sleeveen

(also slieveen, sleiveen) an untrustworthy or cunning person, from the Irish slíbhín. Used in Ireland and Newfoundland. (OED)

slew

from sluagh, a large number; a great amount (OED). NB: as in a slew of new products, not as in slay.

slob

from slab mud (OED)

smithereens

small fragments, atoms. In phrases such as 'to explode into smithereens'. This is the word smithers (of obscure origin) with the Irish diminutive ending. Whether it derives from the modern Irish smidrín or is the source of this word is unclear (OED).

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 (OED).

Tory

originally an Irish outlaw, probably from the Irish verb tóir, meaning "pursue" (OED).

whiskey

from uisce beatha, 'water of life' (OED). However, the diminutive of water, i.e. 'little water' (the same literal meaning of Russian vodka) is just as reasonable; -in, -an, -een, -i, -kin (most with long 'ee' or IPA /i/) are diminutive endings in Modern and Old Irish.

See also

• Hiberno-English
• List of English words of Old Irish origin
• List of English words of Scottish Gaelic origin
• List of English words of Celtic origin
• Lists of English words of international origin