English words from Irish
5 English words with Irish in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages.
banshee
borrowed from Irish bean sídhe (“woman of the fairies”), from Old Irish ben síde, literally “woman of the fairy mound”. The first element, bean “woman”, comes from the Proto-Indo-European root…
galore
It is borrowed from Irish go leór (“enough, sufficiently”), compare Scottish Gaelic gu leóir. The particle go (Gaelic gu), which usually means “to”, here turns an adjective into an adverb. Leór…
leprechaun
It is borrowed from Irish leipreachán, earlier lupracán, from Middle Irish luchrupán, a metathesis of Old Irish luchorpán, traditionally explained as lú “small” and corp “body” (borrowed from Latin…
phony
It is perhaps an alteration of slang fawney “a gilt brass ring used by swindlers” (1781), borrowed from Irish fáinne (“ring”), from Old Irish. In the confidence trick called the fawney rig, a brass…
smithereens
It is borrowed from Irish smidirín, a diminutive of smiodar “fragment”, perhaps with the diminutive ending seen in colleen. Merriam-Webster suggests the plural smidiríní as the source, while RHWU…