The Seoighe and O’Shea show today featured a piece on the origin of words in which they looked at some of the Irish words that have made their way into the English language. Here are some of the more commonly used ones, surprisingly there are more than one might think….
- “Smashin”- comes from the Irish “is maith sin”
- “Mot”- Dublin slang for girlfriend (”me mot”) is said to be derived from the Irish “cailín maith”- literally meaning good girl
- “Smithereens”- comes from the Irish “smidiríní” literally meaning “in bits”
- To “dig” something is the slang for understanding which comes from the Irish verb “dtuigeann” meaning to understand
- “Galore” from the Irish “go leor” meaning enough
- “Kibosh”, as in to put the kibosh on something, ie., to finish it off from the Irish “an cháip báis”, meaning the cap of death
- “Phoney” from fáinne, meaning ring- fake- originating from Irish immigrants in US referring to fake gold rings illegally marketed there
- “Shanty” from the Irish sean tigh- old house
- “So long”- slán
