madae

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *madyos, from the root of maidid (“to break”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈmaðɘ]

Adjective

madae

1. vain (pointless, futile)
   • 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. 46^b12

     Madach .i. níba madae dam m’oísitiu, air na ní no·gigius, ebarthi Día.

     vain, i.e. my confession will not be vain to me, for whatever I shall pray for, God will grant it.

Declension

io/iā-stem
Singular	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	madae	madae	madae
Vocative	madai
Accusative	madae	madai
Genitive	madai	madae	madai
Dative	madu	madai	madu
Plural	Masculine	Feminine/neuter
Nominative	madai	madai
Vocative	madai madu*
Accusative	madai madu*
Genitive	madae
Dative	madaib
Notes	* when substantivized

Derived terms

• i mmudu
  • Irish: amú
• madach

Descendants

• Middle Irish: mada, muda

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
madae also mmadae after a proclitic ending in a vowel	madae pronounced with /β̃(ʲ)-/	unchanged
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), “31228”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language