NGéadal

nGéadal (Ngéadal or Ngeadal) is the Irish name of the thirteenth letter of the Ogham alphabet, ᚍ.

Ogham letters ᚛ᚑᚌᚐᚋᚁᚂᚃᚓᚇᚐᚅ᚜
Aicme Beithe ᚛ᚐᚔᚉᚋᚓᚁᚂᚃᚄᚅ᚜			Aicme Muine ᚛ᚐᚔᚉᚋᚓᚋᚌᚎᚏ᚜
ᚁ	[b]	Beith	ᚋ	[m]	Muin
ᚂ	[l]	Luis	ᚌ	[ɡ]	Gort
ᚃ	[w]	Fearn	ᚍ	[ɡʷ]	nGéadal
ᚄ	[s]	Sail	ᚎ	[st], [ts], [sw]	Straif
ᚅ	[n]	Nion	ᚏ	[r]	Ruis
Aicme hÚatha ᚛ᚐᚔᚉᚋᚓᚆᚇᚈᚉᚊ᚜			Aicme Ailme ᚛ᚐᚔᚉᚋᚓᚐᚑᚒᚓᚔ᚜
ᚆ	[j]	Uath	ᚐ	[a]	Ailm
ᚇ	[d]	Dair	ᚑ	[o]	Onn
ᚈ	[t]	Tinne	ᚒ	[u]	Úr
ᚉ	[k]	Coll	ᚓ	[e]	Eadhadh
ᚊ	[kʷ]	Ceirt	ᚔ	[i]	Iodhadh
Forfeda ᚛ᚃᚑᚏᚃᚓᚇᚐ᚜
	ᚕ	[ea], [k], [x], [eo]	Éabhadh
	ᚖ	[oi]	Ór
	ᚗ	[ui]	Uilleann
	ᚘ	[ia]	Ifín
	ᚙ	[x], [ai]	Eamhancholl
	ᚚ	[p]	Peith
v t e

The Bríatharogam (kennings) for the letter are:

• lúth lego "sustenance of a leech"
• étiud midach "raiment of physicians"
• tosach n-échto "beginning of slaying"

Its meaning is probably "[the act of] wounding". In Old Irish, the letter name was Gétal. It may be a verbal noun of gonid 'wounds, slays'. in which case is related to Welsh gwanu 'to pierce, to stab', which comes from the root was *gʷhen- 'to pierce, to strike'. Its original phonetic value in Primitive Irish was [ɡʷ], the voiced labiovelar. In Old Irish, this phoneme merged with g (gort), and the medieval manuscript tradition assigns it Latin ng [ŋ], hence the unetymological spelling of the letter name with initial n-.

References

• Damian McManus, Irish letter-names and their kennings, Ériu 39 (1988), 127-168.