This is a list of English language words of Irish origin, including from the Celtic Irish language and the Germanic Hiberno-English and Ulster Scots languages. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Irish () is a Goidelic language spoken in Ireland. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Ulster Scots, also known as Ullans, Hiberno-Scots, or Scotch-Irish, refers to the variety of Scots (sometimes referred to as Lowland Scots) spoken in parts of the province of Ulster, which spans the six counties of Northern Ireland and three of the Republic of Ireland. ...

Dictionary abbreviations:

• AHD: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, hosted at Bartleby.com
• M-W: Meriam-Webster, hosted at webster.com
• RH: Random House Unabridged Dictionary, hosted at Dictionary.com

banshee

from Irish bean sídhe, "woman of fairyland" (M-W[1]), "...of the fairies" (AHD[2]) or "...of a fairy mound" (RH[3])

ben

(from Gaelic beann) a mountain peak. For instance, the Twelve Bens in Connemara or Ben Bulben in Sligo, beloved of William Butler Yeats ('Under bare Ben Bulben's head, in Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid...').

bog

(from bogach, 'a bog', or bog, 'soft') Bog, a piece of wet spongy ground

boreen

(from bóithrín) a small country road

bother

(from bodhar, "deaf" or "to deafen") To annoy or to disturb.

boycott

from Captain Boycott, a harsh landlord, whose tenants refused to pay their rent to him because he treated them so badly.

brack

Type of bread with raisins, from the Irish word "breac" meaning "spotted"

brogue

(from bróig, a shoe) A type of shoe.

brogue

A strong regional accent, especially an Irish one. Presumably used originally with reference to the footwear of speakers of the brogue.

clan

In Irish, extended family; also in Irish it refers to the children of a nuclear family.

callow

A low-lying meadow by an Irish river, liable to be flooded; a water-meadow. Also in adjectival use. This is derived from the English callow (originally, 'bald', or 'unfeathered', and now often 'inexperienced') but is a particularly Irish usage.

colleen

(from cailín) girl (usually referring to an Irish girl)

crack

fun. Although, strictly speaking, not a word of Irish origin, it is often spelled craic in an Irish style by those who mistakenly believe it is an Irish language word. It originates (and this is still up for debate), in Scotland [4] and the north of England. Nothing whatsoever to do with the drug crack.

crag

(from carraig, 'rock') A steep or precipitous rugged rock. This is more likely, however, to have entered English from Old British than from Irish

dig

(from the Irish 'dtuigean', to understand or 'get') To understand, or appreciate something: To dig it (also as "twig" to understand or realise.)

donnybrook

(from pre-1855 Dublin's Donnybrook Fair) an altercation or fight

drum

(from droim, 'back') A ridge often separating two long narrow valleys; a long narrow ridge of drift or diluvial formation.

drumlin

(from droim, 'back' with a diminutive) A small rounded hill of glacial formation, often seen in series.

ecker

Most often used in Dublin, meaning 'homework'. Derived from 'exercises' as assigned by schoolteachers.

eejit

the original pronunciation of idiot. A fool.

esker

(from eiscir) an elongated mound of post-glacial gravel, usually along a river valley.

feck

A version of fuck with all the sexual connatations removed. You'd never hear 'motherfecker', for instance.

galore

plenty, a lot. From go leor, Gaelic for many.

gob

(literally beak) mouth. It most likely entered English, however, from Gaulish cognate

gobbo

via French gobe 'mouthful', 'lump' (cf. gober 'gulp', 'swallow down')

gobshite

a fool, one held in contempt. Vulgar. See eejit.

keen

(from caoin, 'to cry') to lament, to wail mournfully

kibosh

'To put the kibosh on' is to do for something, finish it off. The OED says the origin is obscure and possibly Arabic or Yiddish, but it may be from the Irish an cháip bháis, 'the cap of death'.

loch

(from loch) A lake, or arm of the sea; this has entered English by various routes; one derivation is most obvious (but then the spelling is usually 'lough'), and in Anglo-Irish and in various northern English dialects the origin is Gaelic.

leprechaun

- elf, sprite (from leipreachán)

mot

In Dublin, 'my girlfriend' would be 'me mot'. The fact that the 't' is not strongly pronounced suggests relation with Irish maith 'good' (perhaps via cailín maith, 'good girl'), but it is in fact a preservation of an English word (mainly for 'harlot') with possible French, Dutch, and Romany origins.

poteen

(from poitín, 'small pot') hooch, bootleg alcoholic drink, usually of disturbing potency

phoney

(from fáinne, ring) fake (term originating from Irish immigrants in US referring to fake gold rings illegally marketed there)

quiz

word allegedly invented by a Richard Daly, a Dublin theatre owner, in the late 18th century as result of a bet that he would introduce a new word to the English language overnight. This is a myth, however. A slang-word quiz meaning 'odd fellow' is first recorded in 1782 (whence quizzical) A more likely derivation is the Latin "quis?" meaning "who?" - the normal first word of any quiz question.

shanty

(from sean tig) old house.

smashing

(from is maith é sin) that's good

slob

from slaba mud, itself likely derived from Scandinavian, perhaps via English slab 'muddy place'.

slogan

(from sluagh-ghairm) troop-cry / war-cry.

slew

(from slua) throng, as in a slew of new products, not as in slay.

smidgean or smidgin

(from smidin, same as smidirín)

smithereens

(from smidiríní) little pieces

spree

As in "shopping spree", from the Irish word "spraoi", meaning "fun"

tilly

(from tuilleadh, 'an additional quantity, supplement') used in Ireland and places of Irish settlement such as Newfoundland to refer to an additional article or amount unpaid for by the purchaser, as a gift from the vendor.

twig

(from tuig, understand or realise).

whiskey

(from uisce beatha, 'water of life').

wick

Bad, Rubbish, Stupid

Look up banshee in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Bencorr from across Lough Inagh Benbaun from north of Lough Inagh The Twelve Bens or Twelve Pins (Irish Na Beanna Beola) is a picturesque mountain range in Connemara in the west of Ireland. ... Connemara (Irish Conamara), which derives from Conmhaicne Mara (meaning: descendants of Con Mhac, of the sea), is a district in the west of Ireland (County Galway). ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 54. ... W.B. Yeats in Dublin on 24 January 1908. ... A shoe is an item of footwear worn on the foot or feet of a human, dog, cat, horse, or doll. ... A clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which is defined by perceived descent from a common ancestor. ... Drumlin in Cato, New York Drowned drumlin in Clew Bay Drumlin at Withrow Moraine and Jameson Lake Drumlin Field National Natural Landmark A drumlin (Irish droimnín, a little hill ridge) is an elongated whale-shaped hill formed by glacial action. ... Eskers are long, winding ridges of stratified sand and gravel which occur in glaciated and formerly glaciated regions of Europe and North America. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A modern stereotypical depiction of a Leprechaun of the type popularised in the 20th Century. ... Shine Road The name tells the history of this back road Hemingway, South Carolina The literal meaning of moonshine is the light of the moon, but because the activity of distilling whiskey unlawfully was usually done at night with as little light as possible, the word became both a verb... Whisky (or whiskey) is an alcoholic beverage distilled from grain, often including malt, which has then been aged in wooden barrels. ...

See also

• Hiberno-English
• List of English words of Scottish Gaelic origin - it is often difficult to distinguish the Irish or Scottish origin of some words
• Lists of English words of international origin