lestar

Old Irish

Etymology

Generally considered a Proto-Brythonic borrowing, due to the existence of the cluster /st/, which should have become /s/ in native vocabulary. Ultimately from Proto-Celtic *lestrom. The neuter gender may have been from a very early borrowing, before Proto-Brythonic lost the neuter gender.

Noun

lestar n (genitive lestair, nominative plural lestra)

1. vessel
   • 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. 94^c9

     .i. air lani ind lestair .i. sechis ar lani in[na] diglae-sín.

     i.e. for the fullness of the vessel; that is, namely, for the fullness of that punishment.

Inflection

Neuter o-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	lestarN	lestarN	lestarL, lestra
Vocative	lestarN	lestarN	lestarL, lestra
Accusative	lestarN	lestarN	lestarL, lestra
Genitive	lestairL	lestar	lestarN
Dative	lesturL	lestraib	lestraib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Derived terms

• lestrae

Descendants

• Middle Irish: lestar
  • Irish: leastar

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
lestar also llestar after a proclitic ending in a vowel	lestar pronounced with /l(ʲ)-/	unchanged
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), “lestar”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language