ómun

Old Irish

Alternative forms

• omun, homun (with short vowel)

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *oβnus. The ó is unexpected, since fricative-induced compensatory lengthening did not occur, as no fricative was deleted. Thurneysen explained the long ó as being transferred from the synonym úath (“fear”) before that word underwent diphthongization. Forms with the expected short vowel like omun are also attested and are completely interchangeable with the long-vowel forms, even within a single Old Irish speaker's writings.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈo(ː)β̃un]

Noun

ómun m

1. fear
   • 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. 59^a18

     .i. ómun epertae nad·rabae remdéicsiu Dǽ dim-so intan do·rata form inna fochaidi.

     i.e. fear of saying that there was no providence of God for me, when the tribulations were inflicted upon me.

   • 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. 128^d7

     .i. ermitiu feid homno Dǽ

     i.e. reverence of the fear of God (explaining Latin reverentia (“reverence”))

Inflection

Masculine u-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ómun	ómunL	ómnae
Vocative	ómun	ómunL	ómnu
Accusative	ómunN	ómunL	ómnu
Genitive	ómnoH, ómnaH	ómno, ómna	ómnaeN
Dative	ómunL	ómnaib	ómnaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Middle Irish: úaman, oman
  • Irish: uamhan
  • Scottish Gaelic: uabhann

Mutation

Mutation of ómun

radical	lenition	nasalization
ómun (pronounced with /h/ in h-prothesis environments)	unchanged	n-ómun

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in Old Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Further reading

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