meinistir

Old Irish

Alternative forms

• menstir

Etymology

From Latin ministerium.

Noun

meinistir f (genitive meinistri, nominative plural meinistri)

1. reliquary
   • c. 810, Biblical Glosses in the Book Armagh, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 494–98, Ardm. 18^a2

     Du·bbert Pátricc cumtach du Fiacc, idon clocc ⁊ menstir ⁊ bachall ⁊ poolire.

     Patrick gave Fiacc a case [containing] a bell, a reliquary, a crozier, and a writing tablet.

Inflection

Feminine ī-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	meinistirL	meinistirL	meinistriH
Vocative	meinistirL	meinistirL	meinistriH
Accusative	meinistriN	meinistirL	meinistriH
Genitive	meinistreH	meinistreL	meinistreN
Dative	meinistriL	meinistrib	meinistrib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Middle Irish: meinistir

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
meinistir also mmeinistir after a proclitic ending in a vowel	meinistir 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), “meinistir”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language