doucai

Old Irish

Etymology

From to- +‎ Proto-Celtic *unketi, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁unékti, *h₁unkénti (“to get used to, learn”, nasal infix present) from the root *h₁ewk-. Cognate with Sanskrit उच्यति (ucyati, “to be accustomed”), Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐌿𐌷𐍄𐍃 (biuhts, “accustomed”), Old Church Slavonic оучити (učiti, “to teach”) and вꙑкнѫти (vyknǫti, “to acclimate; to learn”), and Lithuanian jùnkti (“get used to”).

Formerly held to be a specialized sense of do·uic (“has brought”), the perfect of do·beir, and so listed in the Dictionary of the Irish Language; but in fact the two are etymologically unrelated. Nevertheless, the forms of the two may sometimes become conflated, and in some contexts it may be unclear which of the two verbs is intended.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [doˈhuɡɨ]

Verb

do·ucai (prototonic ·tuccai)

1. to understand

   Synonym: as·gnin

   • c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 91^c1

     No scrútain-se, in tan no mbíinn isnaib fochaidib, dús in retarscar cairde ṅDǽ ⁊ a remcaissiu, ⁊ ní tucus-sa insin, in ru·etarscar fa naic.

     I used to consider, when I was in the tribulations, [to see] whether the covenant of God and his providence had departed, and I didn't understand [that,] whether it had departed or not.

Conjugation

Complex, class A II present, s preterite, f future, a subjunctive

		1st sg.	2nd sg.	3rd sg.	1st pl.	2nd pl.	3rd pl.	Passive sg.	Passive pl.
Present indicative	Deut.			do·ucci, do·hucci, du·ucai			do·ucet	do·ucthar, do·hucthar, du·ucthar, tu·ucthar
	Prot.	·tucu		·tucci, ·tuicci, ·tucai, ·tuccai			·tucat, ·tuccat	·tucthar	·tuctar, ·tucatar
Imperfect indicative	Deut.
	Prot.						·tuctais
Preterite	Deut.
	Prot.	·tucus				·tucsid	·tucsat, ·tuicset
Perfect	Deut.
	Prot.
Future	Deut.
	Prot.			·tucfa		do·ucbaid		·tuccfither
Conditional	Deut.
	Prot.
Present subjunctive	Deut.				do·uccam			do·ucthar, do·hucthar, du·ucthar, tu·ucthar
	Prot.	·tuc	·tucce, ·tuicce, ·tucca			·tucid, ·tuccid, ·ducaid
Past subjunctive	Deut.							·ducthe
	Prot.	·tuccin			·tucmis
Imperative
Verbal noun
Past participle
Verbal of necessity

Descendants

• Middle Irish: tuicid
  • Irish: tuig
  • Manx: toig
  • Scottish Gaelic: tuig

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
do·ucai (pronounced with /h/ in h-prothesis environments)	unchanged	do·n-ucai
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “do·beir”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Pedersen, Holger (1913) Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen (in German), volume II, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, →ISBN, § 665.10, pages 471–472