enncae

Old Irish

Etymology

A derivative of ennac (“innocent”).

Noun

enncae f (genitive enncae, no plural)

1. innocence
   • c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 24^a19

     Ro·fitir didiu ⁊ etir·gein ní dú ulc, intí lasmbí ind encae; ní fitir immurgu olc n-etir intí bís isind encae.

     He, then, who has the innocence knows and understands something of evil; he, however, does not know evil (at all) that is in the innocence.

Inflection

Feminine iā-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	enncaeL	—	—
Vocative	enncaeL	—	—
Accusative	enncaiN	—	—
Genitive	enncae	—	—
Dative	enncaiL	—	—
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Middle Irish: enga, endgae

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
enncae (pronounced with /h/ in h-prothesis environments)	unchanged	n-enncae
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

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