macc coím
Old Irish edit
Noun edit
macc coím m (genitive maicc coím, nominative plural maicc coím)
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see macc, cóem.
- boy, lad, servant?
- c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 27b16
- Gaibid immib a n‑étach macc coím-sa, amal nondad maicc coím-a, .i. uiscera is hé in dechellt as·beir.
- Put on this raiment of servants, as you pl are servants, i.e viscera is the garment that he mentions.
- c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 27b16
Usage notes edit
It is unclear from the example above whether Old Irish macc coím (literally “dear son”) had already acquired the idiomatic meaning ‘boy, lad, servant’ that it had in Middle Irish and still has in Modern Irish, but it seems somewhat likely. In Middle and Modern Irish the term has undergone univerbation.