deac

Old Irish

Alternative forms

• deëc

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *dekam-kʷe (literally “and ten”), with loss of the first k by dissimilation.

Numeral

deäc

1. -teen

Usage notes

When modifying a noun to indicate an amount between 11 and 19, deac follows the noun while its accompanying numeral simultaneously precedes the noun.

Quotations

• c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 16^c10

  cóic bliadni deäc ― fifteen years (literally, “five years -teen”)

Descendants

• Middle Irish: déc
  • Irish: déag
  • Scottish Gaelic: deug
  • Manx: jeig

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
deäc	deäc pronounced with /ð(ʲ)-/	ndeäc
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “deec”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language