líth

See also: lith, lith-, Lith., -lith, liþ, lið, and líð

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *lītus or *ɸlītus, of uncertain origin.^[1] Cognate with Breton lid (“feast, rite”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /l͈ʲiːθ/

Noun

líth m (genitive lítha, nominative plural líthe)

1. festival
   • c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 27^a24

     Nachib·mided .i. nachib·berar i smachtu rechta fetarlicce, inna ndig et a mbíad, inna llíthu et a ssapati, act bad foirbthe far n‑iress.

     Let him not judge you, i.e. do not be borne into the institutions of the Law of the Old Testament, into their drink and their food, into their festivals and their sabbaths; but let your faith be perfect.

Declension

Masculine u-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	líth	líthL	lítheH
Vocative	líth	líthL	líthu
Accusative	líthN	líthL	líthu
Genitive	líthoH, líthaH	líthoL, líthaL	lítheN
Dative	líthL	líthaib	líthaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Irish: líth

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
líth also llíth after a proclitic ending in a vowel	líth pronounced with /l(ʲ)-/	unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

1. Matasović, Ranko (2009) Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 241

Further reading

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