cétmuinter

Old Irish

Etymology

From cét- (“first”) +‎ muinter (“family, household”).

Noun

cétmuinter f (genitive cétmuintire)

1. (law) a spouse, implied to be at the top of the household

Usage notes

The term primarily appeared in legal texts in Old Irish, and could be used to refer to a spouse of either gender depending on the context.

Inflection

Feminine ā-stem

	singular	dual	plural
nominative	cétmuinterL	cétmuintirL	cétmuinteraH
vocative	cétmuinterL	cétmuintirL	cétmuinteraH
accusative	cétmuintirN	cétmuintirL	cétmuinteraH
genitive	cétmuintireH	cétmuinterL	cétmuinterN
dative	cétmuintirL	cétmuinteraib	cétmuinteraib

Initial mutations of a following adjective:

• ^H = triggers aspiration
• ^L = triggers lenition
• ^N = triggers nasalization

Mutation

Mutation of cétmuinter

radical	lenition	nasalization
cétmuinter	chétmuinter	cétmuinter pronounced with /ɡ(ʲ)-/

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), “cétmuinter”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language