brao

Old Irish

Alternative forms

• bráu, broo

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *brawū (“millstone”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷréh₂wō (“heavy stone”), from *gʷréh₂us (“heavy”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /braːu̯/

Noun

brao f (genitive broon)

1. quern, millstone
   • c. 845, St Gall Glosses on Priscian, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1975, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, pp. 49–224, Sg. 184^b3

     Tuarcain do·fuaircitis inna grán la arsidi resiu arista brao.

     The grains used to be crushed by pounding by the ancients before a quern was invented.

   • c. 850, Book of Armagh, folio 10^a2, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, vol. 2, p. 45:

     broon glosses Latin molae

Declension

Not attested in the plural until Middle Irish

Feminine n-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	brao, bráu, broo	—	—
Vocative	brao, bráu, broo	—	—
Accusative	*broïnN	—	—
Genitive	broon	—	—
Dative	*broïnL, braoL	—	—
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Middle Irish: bró
  • Irish: bró
  • Scottish Gaelic: brà

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
brao	brao pronounced with /v(ʲ)-/	mbrao
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “1 bró”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language