Gaelic

How to spell gaelic

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce gaelic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gaelic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the Gaels or to their languages and culture in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands.
2. nounThe Celtic language of Ireland or of the Scottish Highlands.

Gaelic in a sentence

• adjective

  The festival celebrated traditional gaelic music and dance.

• noun

  He spent two years learning gaelic at an evening class.

• adjective

  Her grandmother grew up in a gaelic village on the western coast.

• noun

  The road signs in the region appear in both English and gaelic.

Where does gaelic come from?

Language of origin: Celtic

This word goes back to the Old Irish word Goídel, meaning a Gael, that is a member of the Celtic peoples of Ireland and later of the Scottish Highlands. Curiously, Goídel was itself borrowed from the Welsh word Gwyddel, which the Britons used for an Irishman, so the name the Gaels carry actually came to them from their neighbours. From that root grew the native term Gàidhlig (Scottish) and Gaeilge (Irish) for the language itself. English adopted the form 'Gaelic' in the eighteenth century, fitting the older root to the familiar Latin-derived ending -ic that marks something as 'relating to' a people. The spelling trap lies in the vowel pair at the front: the unusual 'ae' sequence is easy to flip to 'ea', and the single 'l' is easy to mistake for a double.

How the word is built

• gael- (a Gael, a Celtic person of Ireland or Scotland)
• -ic (adjective/noun suffix: relating to)