seilche

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Middle Irish seilche (“shelled animal”), from Old Irish selige, from Proto-Indo-European *tsel- (“to sneak”), see also English steal, Old Armenian սողիմ (sołim, “to creep”).

Noun

seilche f (genitive singular seilche, plural seilchean)

1. (folklore) a lake-dwelling water monster
2. (dialectal) turtle, tortoise

   Synonym: turtar

Derived terms

• seilcheag (“snail”)

Further reading

• MacBain, Alexander, Mackay, Eneas (1911) “seilche”, in An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language‎^[1], Stirling, →ISBN
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “seilche”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language