qualtagh

English

Wikipedia

Alternative forms

• quaaltagh

Etymology

From Manx qualtagh.

Noun

qualtagh

1. (Manx English) The first person one encounters, either after leaving one's home or (sometimes) outside one's home, especially on New Year's Day.
   • 1892, John Rhys, Manx Folk-lore and superstitions, in Folk-lore, volume 3, page 79:

     The following is what I have learnt by inquiry as to the qualtagh: all are agreed that he must not be a woman or girl, […] . An English lady living in the neighbourhood of Castletown told me that her son, […] called at a house in Castletown on the morning of New Year's Day, and he chanced to be the qualtagh.

   • (Can we date this quote?), O. Harrison / Johnson, The Isle-iad; or, King Orry's Banquet, quoted in 1903 in The English Dialect Dictionary, volume 4 (M-Q), page 667:

     Who would the ‘Qualtagh’ to a parish be?

   • 1894, (T. H.) Hall Caine, in the Manxman, part 2, page 2, quoted in 1903 in The English Dialect Dictionary, volume 4 (M-Q), page 667:

     I should be the first-foot here, only I'm no use as a qualtagh.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see the citations page.

See also

• first footing

References

• qualtagh in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911 Supplement

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Manx

Noun

qualtagh m

1. the first individual a person meets after exiting his or her house

Mutation

Manx mutation
Radical	Lenition	Eclipsis
qualtagh	whaltagh	unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.