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Published 01/10/24
àibheis f. [ˈɛːvɛʃ], [ˈaivɛʃ], [ˈa-iʃ],
Cf. SGDS Item 10: aibheis, e.g. (Pt 14, St Kilda) [ɛːvɛʃ], (Pt 29, Barra) [[ɑ>i]vɛʃ], (Pt 4, Lewis) [a-ɪʃ]. ?Also *[ˈɛvɛʃ], cf. SGDS Item 11: aibheiseach (Pt 122, Gairloch) [ɛvɛ̇ʃǫ̇x] (see under Derivatives, below).
gen. àibheise -[ə], or àibheist, also aibheis, aibheist (aibhist). This word, quoted in a poem in Stewart 1804, 297, and glossed by the editor (p. 1 of an appended glossary) as ‘ruins of a house’, is derived by Henderson (1910, 113: aibhist) from ON á-vist f. ‘abode, residence’; so also McDonald (2009, 339) and Ó Muirithe (2013, 13). Marstrander (1915a, 120) derives EG áḃais(e) ‘custom’ and SG àbhaist ‘idem’ from ON á-vist.
Marstrander himself refers to Meyer’s (1906, 5) EG áḃais(e), although Meyer (ibid., i) corrects EG áḃais(e) to aḃais(e): eDIL˄ cites the word as abais (i.e. aḃais), but notes it is found with á- twice.
For the association of the senses ‘custom’, ‘abode’ and ‘ruin’, cf. MacLennan (1925), who gives aibhist in the sense ‘old ruin’ with a cross-reference to àbhais(t) ‘custom; abode’, the sense ‘abode’ arising in the context of an làrach an robh àbhaist do sheanar, which is translated as ‘the site on which stood your grandfather‘s habitation’; more literally, this means ‘the place where your grandfather’s habit was’, in other words ‘where he was wont to be’.
O’Rahilly (1929, 53 fn 3) comes to the same conclusion with regard to Watson’s ([1918], 1932, 337) translation of àbhaist in the same phrase as ‘dwelling-place’.
The word àibheis most probably has nothing to do with àbhaist, which most probably has a Gaelic origin.
O’Rahilly (1929, 52–54) suggests from EG *aḋḃaise, a by-form of aiḋḃse, from the verbal root fiad- (cf. Pedersen 1913, 518–19).
Àibheis in the sense ‘ruin’ is found in Armstrong 1825 (aibhist f. ‘ruin, destruction; an old ruin’), HSS 1828 (àibhist f. ‘old ruin’), McAlpine 1832 (aibhist f. ‘old ruin’), McDonald 1972, 21 (àibheis ‘large empty house; large clumsy person’) and Robertson and MacDonald 2010 (àibheis f. ‘the sea; (colloq.) large structure, ruin’). While other dictionaries keep the words àibheis in the sense ‘ruin’ and àibheis in the sense ‘the sea’ etc. distinct, Robertson and Boyd are probably right to connect them. Lat. abyssus yields EG aḃis, which in turn yields SG aibheis and, with lengthening of the stressed vowel,
The cause of this lengthening is not clear, but presumably by analogy; for example, cf. SG àbharsair [aː]-, àibhirsear, àibhistear [ai]- ‘Satan’ (EG aḋḃarsóir, aiḋḃirseóir < Lat. aduersarius (eDIL˄)), where lengthening is the result of compensation for the loss of the dental fricative in Early Gaelic.
àibheis. From the primary sense ‘abyss’, a variety of other senses have developed: ‘a gulf; the deep, the sea, the ocean; the void, the atmosphere; a void, emptiness, a ruin (and, erroneously, destruction); a great quantity; boasting; a large structure; a large clumsy person’, as well as ‘a place full of fairies’.
The sense ‘a place full of fairies’ perhaps arising through confusion with aibhse (for aillse ‘fairy’) (Robertson 1908c, 80).
For the development of final -t, cf. EG (dissyllabic) diïs > SG dithis > dithist f. ‘two (people)’.
Derivatives: àibheiseach (aibheiseach)
Cf. SGDS, Item 11.
adj. ‘large, hugh’ and àibheisich, àibhsich vb ‘to exaggerate’.