námae

See also: namae

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *nāmants, traditionally said to be from Proto-Indo-European *ne (“not”) + *h₂em- (“love”) (compare Latin amō), but as that verb root is not otherwise attested in Celtic, this may be a folk etymology.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈn͈aːṽe/

Noun

námae m (genitive námat, nominative plural námait)

1. enemy
   • 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. 51^c9

     is in núall do·ngniat hó ru·maith for a náimtea remib

     it is the cry that they make when their enemies are defeated by them

Declension

Masculine nt-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	námae	námaitL	námait
Vocative	námae	námaitL	náimtea
Accusative	námaitN	námaitL	náimtea
Genitive	námat	námatL	námatN
Dative	námaitL	náimtib	náimtib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Derived terms

• náimtide
• náimtine

 

Descendants

• Middle Irish: náma
  • Irish: namhaid
  • Manx: noid
  • Scottish Gaelic: nàmhaid

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
námae also nnámae after a proclitic ending in a vowel	námae pronounced with /n(ʲ)-/	unchanged
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), “náma(e)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language