beagan

See also: beagán

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish becán m (“a little, small quantity”) (compare Irish beagán, Manx beggan). By surface analysis, beag (“small, little”) +‎ -an.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpekan/
• (Lewis) IPA^(key): [ˈpɤkan]

Noun

beagan m (genitive singular beagain, no plural)

1. a few, a small number

   beagan mhionaidean ― a few minutes

   an ceann beagain làithean ― at the end of a few days

2. a little, a small amount, bit, a bit

   beagan uisge ― a little water

   beagan bìdh ― a bit of food

Usage notes

• Followed by the genitive case, de and the dative case, or a prepositional pronoun derived from de:

  beagan ime / beagan de dh'ìm ― a small amount of butter

  beagan dhinn ― a few of us

• Used where English uses determiner, adverb or pronoun.

  beagan chàirdean ― a few friends

  beagan dhiubh ― a small number of them

  beagan nas sine ― a bit older / slightly older

  beagan nas slaodaiche ― a little more slowly

  Tha i dìreach beagan is còig ceud meatair. ― It’s just a little over five hundred metres.

  Tha airgead aig beagan. ― A few [people] have money.

  Bha e doirbh airson bheagain. ― It was difficult for a few.

Antonyms

• mòran

Related terms

• beag

References

• Edward Dwelly (1911) “beagan”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary]‎^[1], 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “becán”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language