ONlwSG

Show / Hide all footnotes

àirc f. [aːɾ̥ʲkʲ], 

Cf. [âėrk] (M^cAlpine 1832, s.v. airc: Islay), [aːrˈcg] (Dieckhoff 1932, s.v. airc), /aːrʲçgʲ/ (AFB^˄).

gen. àirce -[ə], in the sense ‘chest (box)’ is tentatively derived by Craigie (1894, 157–58: airc) from ON örk [leg. ǫrk f.] or [OEng.] earc (arc) ‘idem’, but Marstrander (1915a, 120) points out that SG àirc is an old loan from Lat. arca ‘chest, box’; so also MacBain (1896; 1911) and MacLennan (1925).

McDonald (2009, 430) opines that it is ‘[d]ifficult to differentiate between the two possible sources [i.e. Old Norse and Latin]’.

More accurately, SG àirc is either a normalised dative form of SG àrc 

Shaw (1780) cross-references arc to airc, Armstrong (1825) †arc to airc, and HSS (1828) àrc to àirc.

from EG árc ‘coffer, chest; ?coffin; Ark of the Covenant’ (eDIL^˄), or directly from EG áirc, a normalised dative form of EG árc, itself from Lat. ărca (ibid.; Vendryes 1996, s.v. arc), as is ON ǫrk (de Vries 1962); cf. Ir. áirc ‘ark’ (Ó Dónaill 1977 

Cf. Plunkett 1662, f.30v, s.v. arca: áirc (for the variant árg, cf. arg (eDIL^˄)); Lhuyd 1707: airc ‘ark’; O’Brien 1768: airc ‘ark’, Lat. arca; O’Reilly 1817; 1864: airc ‘chest’; but note the extended sense ‘body’ in O’Clery’s (1643) arc .i. corp.

). The long vowel of EG árc is analogical (Thurneysen 1975, 573 §923).

SG àirc includes the senses ‘chest, box, ark’ and is used biblically of both Noah’s Ark and the Ark of the Covenant. The senses ‘large granary’ (Shaw 1780; HSS 1828) and ‘granary’ (Armstrong 1825; Dwelly 1911) probably mean ‘meal bin’, cf. Scots ark in the sense ‘large chest for storing corn, meal, fruit etc.’ (SND^˄, s.v. ¹ark) and Ulster-Scots ark, airk, erk ‘meal bin’ (Macafee 1996). Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄ also lists àirc in the senses ‘hake for fodder’ 

Cf. SND^˄, s.v. [Scots] heck ‘a rack or slatted wooden (or iron) framework’ etc., specifically ‘a rack of wooden spars for holding fodder, fixed to the wall of a byre or stable or secured to a portable framework for use when feeding sheep, etc. in the open’.

and ‘vagina’: the former sense is recorded for the Aird, near Inverness, and is no doubt an extension of the sense ‘chest → bin → rack’; the latter sense is recorded for Barra under the ‘crodh/cattle’ category, and, while conceivably an extension of the sense ‘box → receptacle → vagina’, may instead go back to Scots ark in the sense ‘lower curve of masonry or woodwork which carries off the water from a breast mill-wheel’, which is also extended to ‘the whole of the waterway from the end of the mill-lade [i.e. from the ‘breast’ or foremost part of the wheel, curving round and down to the lower part of the wheel] to the tail-race [at the foot of the wheel, which channels the water away]’ (SND^˄, s.v. ²ark 

≈‘The word is probably derived from Lat. arcus “a bow”, although its later application might suggest Lat. arca “chest or box” ’ (ibid.).

). Scots ark yields SG àrc (with its long vowel by analogy), or the normalised dative form àirc, which is otherwise recorded in the senses ‘vulva vaccinea’ (HSS 1828, where (Lat.) vaccinea may intend Lat. vaccīna ‘of cows, bovine’; so also Dwelly 1911, but whose form is silently altered to vulva vaccinia in AFB^˄), hence ‘vulva (of a cow)’ (AFB^˄), 

Note that AFB’s entry (àrc) includes the senses ‘cork; bung, stopper; bottle top, cap; bracket/tree fungus’, but no doubt these have a different origin: for SG àrc (also àirc, e.g. Dieckhoff 1932, s.v. airc: Glengarry, and Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: Skye), àrca (HSS 1828; Dwelly 1911) and dim. àrcan (e.g. Lhuyd 1700, 185 XXIV.33: cork ‘ârkan’; Dwelly 1911), cf. Mx eirkey (Kneen 1978) and eairkey (Kelly 1991) ‘cork’, and Ir. arcan ‘cork’ (Lhuyd 1707), farcan ‘fungus’ also ‘oak’, farcán ‘cork, plug, stopper, dim. of farc and arc’ (eDIL^˄). (In Ó Dónaill 1977, Ir. farcán appears to be subsumed under Ir. fárcán, fadharcán ‘knot (in timber) etc.’ (cf. eDIL^˄, s.v. fadarcán: ?based on EG aḋarc ‘horn’).)

but which is expressed by Alexander Carmichael (CG VI, 9) as ≈‘the water-passage of a cow or animal of cow kind’. 

Carmichael continues, ≈‘a waterfall on the south shoulder of Cruachan is called Arc Eas Bheann ‘the àrc of the waterfall of the peaks’, to which his editor Angus Matheson adds ‘àrc “vulva vaccinea”, Dwelly’ (see above). Ben Cruachan (NN069304) is in Scottish Gaelic traditionally Cruachan Beann (e.g. George Campbell Hay (1915–1984), in Byrne 2000 I, 82; for further references, see Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba, s.v. Ben Cruachan) ‘the mountain of peaks’, with (unlenited) genitive plural of SG beinn ‘mountain’ (which in this name normally bears the primary stress, as in the song ‘Cruachan Beann’ (Tobar an Dualchais, ID 12549) by Pàdraig Mac an t-Saoir (1782–1855) of Leitir Beann (cf. OS 1848–83 Leitir NN105261), pace Watson and Murray (2015, 174), who place primary stress on the first element), although a modern rendering is Cruachan Bheann (e.g. Taylor 2011, 181, s.v. Ben Cruachan), with lenition of an indefinite genitive plural noun according to modern practice. Carmichael’s Arc Eas Bheann denotes The Falls of Cruachan NN079269, and was recorded by William J. Watson (Carmichael-Watson: CW67, p. 60r) as Eas arc beann [‘the stream of the water passage—’] from ‘Charles MacDonald (near 80) Barracheandar, Taynuilt’ in 1914, but as Eas dearc beann [with SG dearc ‘opening’ (EG derc)] from the Rev. M. N. Munro (probably the Rev. Malcolm Nicolson Munro, b. Uig, Lewis 1869, d. Taynuilt 1934; for an obituary, see An Gaidheal XXIX, Am Màrt 1934, 85), but earlier by Archibald Smith (1867, 224–25) as Easdurchabeann [with SG dorcha ‘dark’]. Evidently, the name has been subject to change. One possible scenario is that a place-name with eas ‘waterfall’ as generic was created using an existing name (i.e. *Dearc Beann ‘the opening—) as specific. However, through folk etymology *Dearc Beann was reinterpreted as *Àrc Beann, using the Scots loan-word àrc to highlight the feature originally denoted by dearc, but which was now confused with the homophonous, but semantically implausible, dearc ‘berry’. Carmichael’s Arc Eas Bheann may represent a ‘corrected’ version of the later form of the name. Smith’s Easdurchabeann assumes a name-form *Eas Dorcha Beann ‘the dark waterfall—’, which may have been created quite independently of *Eas Dearc Beann, two different names for the same feature not being out of the question. The final, stressed element in these forms, as well as in the name Leitir Beann, may be a truncated form of Cruachan Beann.

(Note that, besides commenting that Cruachan Beann, if it means ‘[the] haunch of peaks’, should be Cruachan Bheann (but for which, see above), Watson and Murray (ibid.) suggest that Cruachan Beann may be a compound formation; however, a (closed) compound would give *ˈCruachan-ˌBheann, with a preposed, fully stressed specific element leniting a weakly stressed generic element.)

Further, note SG àrc in the sense ‘hollow near a cow’s tail by which you can judge when the cow is likely to calve’ 

An indication of imminent parturition in cows is the slackening of the sacro-iliac ligaments around the pelvis (NADIS), which creates a visible hollowing around the head of the cow’s tail.

(Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: South Uist 

Also called SG sloc an airich (ibid.), leg. sloc an àirich (cf. McDonald 1972, s.v.: ‘ “the grazier’s hollow”, a little hollow near the tail of a cow which indicates when cows are likely to calf’, South Uist). AFB^˄ translates sloc an àirich (q.v.) erroneously as ‘vulva (of a cow)’.

), also àrcan ‘idem’, 

Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄, s.v. arcan: a’ bho a’ tighinn faisg air am breith – an arcan a’ fas farsuinn [sic] [‘the cow getting close to parturition – the arcan widens’], Skye, with an editorial note: ‘arcag?’, without further explanation.

but usage here seems likely to be related to usage in the first element of Scots ark-bane ‘the bone called the os pubis’ (SND^˄).