mílchú

Old Irish

Etymology

From míl (“animal”) +‎ cú (“dog, hound”). The term was originally *míluch (as evidenced by the related hypocoristic personal name Míliuc) but the nominative singular was reformed by analogy with the simplex cú.

Noun

mílchú m (nominative plural mílchoin)

1. hunting dog, possibly a greyhound
   • c. 810, Florence Glosses on Philargyrus, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, p. 48, 21^b

     .i. horcae, mílchú ɫ conbocail

     i.e. lapdog, hunting dog, or watchdog

Inflection

Masculine n-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	mílchú	mílchoinL	mílchoin
Vocative	mílchú	mílchoinL	mílchonaH
Accusative	mílchoinN	mílchoinL	mílchonaH
Genitive	mílchon	mílchonL	mílchonN
Dative	mílchoinL, mílchúL	mílchonaib	mílchonaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Middle Irish: mílcú
  • Irish: míolchú
  • Scottish Gaelic: mialchu

Further reading

• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “mílchú”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language