melg

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *melgos, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂melǵ- (“milk”). See also the related verb mligid.

Noun

melg n (genitive milge)

1. (rare) milk
   • c. 810, Florence Glosses on Philargyrus, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, p. 48, 20^b

     bo-milge

     of cow-milk (glosses Latin sinum lactis .i. genus vasis)

   Synonym: lacht

Usage notes

This term was already falling out of use in the Old Irish period, being only attested in explanatory glosses.

Inflection

Neuter s-stem

	singular	dual	plural
nominative	melgN	—	—
vocative	melgN	—	—
accusative	melgN	—	—
genitive	milgeL	—	—
dative	milgL	—	—

Initial mutations of a following adjective:

• ^H = triggers aspiration
• ^L = triggers lenition
• ^N = triggers nasalization

Mutation

Mutation of melg

radical	lenition	nasalization
melg also mmelg after a proclitic ending in a vowel	melg pronounced with /β̃(ʲ)-/	unchanged

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

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “1 melg”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language