cèile

See also: céile and -cèile

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish céile (“servant, bondsman, vassal, subject; liege, vassal; fellow, companion; husband, wife”), from Primitive Irish ᚉᚓᚂᚔ (celi, “follower, devotee (genitive)”), from Proto-Celtic *keiliyos.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [kʰʲeːlɪ], /kʰʲeːlə/

Noun

cèile m or f (genitive singular cèile, plural cèilean)

1. spouse, husband, wife

   Chan eil cèile agam. ― I don't have a husband/wife/spouse.

2. counterpart, fellow; equal, match
3. other

   An dèidh sin, phòg iad a chèile. ― After that they kissed each other.

   Bha iad a' bruidhinn ri chèile. ― They were speaking with each other.

   Tha na taighean caob math bho chèile. ― The houses are a good bit apart [from one another].

4. servant

Derived terms

• an sreath a chèile (“in a row”)
• -cèile (“-in-law”)
• céile-Dé m (“preserver of the fires; culdee”)
• freagair a chèile (“agree, correspond”)
• le chèile (“together; both”)
• sreath chèile (“in a row”)
• tro-chèile (“confused; upset; untidy”)

 

Adverb

cèile

1. Alternative form of a chèile

Mutation

Scottish Gaelic mutation
Radical	Lenition
cèile	chèile
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

References

• Edward Dwelly (1911) “cèile”, 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), “céile”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language