cumhal

English

Etymology

From Irish cumhal.

Noun

cumhal (plural cumhals)

1. (historical) An Irish unit of account equivalent to the theoretical value of a bondmaid.

Irish

Etymology

From Old Irish cumal.

Noun

cumhal f (genitive singular cumhaile, nominative plural cumhala)

1. bondmaid
   • 1892, William Ridgeway, The Origin of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards (quotation in English and Irish; overall work in English), page 33:

     As elsewhere, however, the slave formed occasionally the highest unit, and was reckoned nominally at three cows. The slave woman (cumhal, ancilla in Latin writers) was in course of time used as a mere unit of account.

2. a unit of account equivalent to the theoretical value of a bondmaid
   • 1922, R. A. Stewart Macalister, “The Valuation and Tenure of Property”, in Ireland‎^[1] (quotation in English and Irish; overall work in English), page 102:

     For yet higher sums the cumhal (pron. cūwal, the u being nasalised) or bondsmaid was the unit, and here again we meet with a considerable range of values. The normal value of the cumhal... seems to have been 10 sets, the set being further defined as of the second class... But in some passages we read of a cumhal worth 3 sets, and even only one; so that there is a wide range of uncertainty as to valuation in the absence of knowledge that was imparted traditionally.

   • 2013, Laurence Ginnell, The Brehon Laws: A Legal Handbook (quotation in English and Irish; overall work in English), page 80:

     The measures by which the actual quantities in each case were ascertained were the cumhal (pronounced cooal) and the sed (pronounced shed)... Cumhal means, literally, a bond-maid or female slave; but in the laws it is never used in any other sense than as a measure of quantity, or rather of value, perhaps what was originally supposed to equal the value of such a slave. As applied to land (tircumhat), it meant the usufruct for one year of about twenty acres, less or more, according as the land was good or bad... As applied to things other than land, cumhal meant the value of three cows.

Declension

Declension of cumhal

Second declension

Bare forms Case Singular Plural Nominative cumhal cumhala Vocative a chumhal a chumhala Genitive cumhaile cumhal Dative cumhal cumhail (archaic, dialectal) cumhala

Forms with the definite article Case Singular Plural Nominative an chumhal na cumhala Genitive na cumhaile na gcumhal Dative leis an gcumhal leis an gcumhail (archaic, dialectal) don chumhal don chumhail (archaic, dialectal) leis na cumhala

Mutation

Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Eclipsis
cumhal	chumhal	gcumhal
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “cumhal”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN