Alan
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
Contents |
[edit] English
[edit] Etymology 1
Celtic name borne by early Breton saints, of disputed origin and meaning; brought to England by Normans. As an early Irish name, perhaps connected with ail, ‘noble’. It may have been the name of a Celtic deity, the brother of Bran, Welsh Alawn, Celtic Alun, ‘harmony’.
[edit] Alternative spellings
[edit] Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -ælən
[edit] Proper noun
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Singular |
Plural |
Alan
- A male given name
[edit] Quotations
- 1951 translation by Nevill Coghill of: 13?? Geoffrey Chaucer: Canterbury Tales: The Reeve's Tale:
- He grabbed at Alan by his Adam's apple,
- And Alan grabbed him back in furious grapple
- And clenched his fist and bashed him on the nose.
- 1910 P. G. Wodehouse, The Man Upstairs, and Other Stories, BiblioBazaar, LLC 2008, ISBN 0554330679, page 24:
- I could pose as an artist all right; so I took the studio. Also the name of Alan Beverley. My own is Bill Bates. I had often wondered what it would feel like to be called by some name like Alan Beverley or Cyril Trevelyan.
[edit] Derived terms
[edit] Translations
male given name
[edit] Etymology 2
From Latin Alānī, from Ancient Greek Ἀλανοί (Alanoi).
[edit] Proper noun
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Singular |
- (historical) Memeber of a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.
[edit] Related terms
[edit] Translations
member of a Sarmatian tribe
[edit] Anagrams
[edit] Czech
[edit] Proper noun
Alan m.
- A male given name, cognate to Alan.
