Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/moltos

This Proto-Celtic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Celtic

Etymology

Unknown. Multiple theories exist.

• Pokorny derived this from *melh₂- (“to crush”), the semantic distance resolvable under the assumption that castration was done with a crushing method.
• Matasović, unsatisfied with previous theories, assumes a borrowing from a non-Indo-European substrate language.

Noun

*moltos m

1. ram, wether

Declension

Masculine o-stem
	singular	dual	plural
nominative	*moltos	*moltou	*moltoi
vocative	*molte	*moltou	*moltoi
accusative	*moltom	*moltou	*moltons
genitive	*moltī	*moltous	*moltom
dative	*moltūi	*moltobom	*moltobos
locative	*moltei	*?	*?
instrumental	*moltū	*moltobim	*moltūis

Descendants

• Proto-Brythonic: *mollt
  • Middle Breton: mout, maout
    • Breton: maout
  • Cornish: mols
  • Middle Welsh: mollt
    • Welsh: mollt
• Old Irish: molt
  • Irish: molt
  • Manx: mohlt
  • Scottish Gaelic: mult
• Gaulish: *multon-
  • → Medieval Latin: moltō, multō, montō, muttō, mutō (see there for further descendants)

Further reading

• “mutton”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.