mílchú

Old Irish

Etymology

From míl (“animal”) +‎ cú (“dog, hound”). The term was originally *míluch (as evidenced by the related hypocoristic personal name Míliuc) but the nominative singular was reformed by analogy with the simplex cú.

Noun

mílchú m (nominative plural mílchoin)

hunting dog, possibly a greyhound
- c. 810, Florence Glosses on Philargyrus, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, p. 48, 21^b
  .i. horcae, mílchú ɫ conbocail
  i.e. lapdog, hunting dog, or watchdog

Inflection

Masculine n-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	mílchú	mílchoin^L	mílchoin
Vocative	mílchú	mílchoin^L	mílchona^H
Accusative	mílchoin^N	mílchoin^L	mílchona^H
Genitive	mílchon	mílchon^L	mílchon^N
Dative	mílchoin^L, mílchú^L	mílchonaib	mílchonaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: ^H = triggers aspiration ^L = triggers lenition ^N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

Middle Irish: mílcú
- Irish: míolchú
- Scottish Gaelic: mialchu

Old Irish

Etymology

Noun

Inflection

Descendants

Further reading