cnú

See also: cnu

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *knūs, from Proto-Indo-European *knew-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /knuː/

Noun

cnú f (genitive cnó, nominative plural cnói)

1. nut

Inflection

This noun is traditionally labelled as a one-of-a-kind "feminine u-stem" despite neither inflecting like a u-stem nor originating from one. Instead it inflects as a consonant stem noun resembling the declension of bó (“cow”) with several forms terminating in -i whose locations parallel those of palatalized auslaut consonants of the velar-stem declensions.

Feminine irregular
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	cnú	cnóiL	cnói
Vocative	cnú	cnóiL	cnóa
Accusative	cnóiN	cnóiL	cnóa
Genitive	cnó	cnó	cnóN
Dative	cnóiL	cnóib	cnóib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Derived terms

• cnú frangcach

Descendants

• Irish: cnó
• Manx: cro
• Scottish Gaelic: cnò

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
cnú	chnú	cnú pronounced with /ɡ(ʲ)-/
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “cnú”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language