enech

Old Irish

Alternative forms

enach (Milan glosses only)
einech

Etymology

From a compound of *h₁én (“in”) and *h₃ekʷ- (“eye”).^[1] The Proto-Celtic noun is usually reconstructed as *enīkʷom, but Matasović departs from the norm to reconstruct *enekʷom instead, leaving the raising in the dative inchaib unexplained.

Oddly, the n seems to be unpalatalized in the Milan glosses, even though its palatalisation is both expected and more amply attested elsewhere.

Noun

enech n pl (genitive enech)

face
- c. 760 Blathmac mac Con Brettan, published in "A study of the lexicon of the poems of Blathmac Son of Cú Brettan" (2017; PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth), edited and with translations by Siobhán Barrett, stanza 48
  Fo·cresa saile – gním col – i n-einech in dúilemon.
  Spittles were cast – deed of sins – in the face of the creator.
front
- 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. 100^b2
  tarsainniu .i. ní [i]na n-enech ro·bitha, acht is inna ndrummai.
  opposing, i.e. it is not in their faces that they had been wounded, but it is in their backs.
honour, dignity

Inflection

Neuter o-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	—	—	enech^L
Vocative	—	—	enech^L
Accusative	—	—	enech^L
Genitive	—	—	enech^N
Dative	—	—	inchaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: ^H = triggers aspiration ^L = triggers lenition ^N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

Middle Irish: enech, einech, ainech
- Irish: oineach, eineach

Mutation

Mutation of *enech*
radical	lenition	nasalization
enech (pronounced with /h/ in h-prothesis environments)	unchanged	n-enech

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in Old Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

References

^ Matasović, Ranko (2009) “*enekʷo-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, pages 115-116