esbae

Old Irish

Alternative forms

• espe, espae

Etymology

From ess- +‎ báe (“benefit, use”).

Noun

esbae m

1. uselessness, folly

Inflection

Masculine io-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	esbae	esbaeL	esbaiL
Vocative	esbai	esbaeL	esbu
Accusative	esbaeN	esbaeL	esbuH
Genitive	esbaiL	esbaeL	esbaeN
Dative	esbuL	esbaib	esbaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Middle Irish: espa
  • Irish: easpa

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
esbae (pronounced with /h/ in h-prothesis environments)	unchanged	n-esbae
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), “esba(e)”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language