ONlwSG

v1.0
Published 01/10/24

ceig f.

But MacLennan 1925: masc.

[kʲʰeɡ̊ʲ], gen. ceige -[ə], in the senses ‘mass of shag, clot’ and the diminutive ceigean in the sense ‘tuft, fat man’ are derived by MacBain (1911: ceigein) from ON kaggi m. ‘keg’, 

MacBain’s entry reads, ‘[f]rom Scandinavian kagge “round mass, keg [italicised in error], corpulent man or animal”; whence Eng. keg; Norse kaggi “cask”, Norwegian kagge “round mass”’.

as MacLennan (1925) does ceig; 

ON kaggi ‘a keg’, Sw. kagga [sic].

Stewart (2004, 408) follows MacLennan. McDonald (2009, 368) considers the loan uncertain.

While ON kaggr m. ‘keg’ is attested in compounds, kaggi is attested only as a man’s nickname, but cf. Nn. kagge ‘keg, barrel’ (NO) and Ice. kaggi ‘keg, cask’ (Cleasby 1874); cf. also Norw. dial. kagge ‘stack, dense compressed mass (e.g. of hay)’ (Torp 1992). Eng. †cag (attested in the form keg from 1632) ‘small barrel or cask; the stomach’ is considered identical with ON kaggi and Sw. kagge (OED^˄); cf. Scots cag [kɑ(ː)g], (south-west) [keg] ‘idem’ (SND^˄).

Jakobsen (1928) notes that Scots (Shetland) kagg [kag] is ‘[n]ow commonly in the form [kɛg] as in English’.

ON kaggi would formally be expected to yield SG *caige *[ˈkʰaɡ̊ʲə] or *[ˈkʰɛɡ̊ʲə], with a non-palatal initial.

Dinneen (1947) lists Ir. ceaig (also caig) ‘keg’, which he takes to be from Eng. keg; Ó Dónaill (1977) lists ceaig, along with the compound ceaig-boilg ‘pot-belly’, and ceaigín as a diminutive of ceaig and in the sense ‘rotund little person’. Neither SG ceig nor ceigein (ceigean) is found in the sense ‘keg’ (see below).

Apart from the adjective ceigainach – once: in Shaw 1780 – neither ceig nor any of its derivatives is listed in the first four lexicographical works in Scottish Gaelic, viz MacDomhnuill 1741, Shaw 1780, Mac Farlan 1795 and MacFarlane 1815. Their almost total absence from these early works may be coincidental or may be due to the currency of the word ceigean in the sense ‘turd’, which may have been avoided in order to protect the sensibility of readers.

Senses 

(1) The senses ‘kick; to kick; fidgety’ (HSS 1828; MacLeod and Dewar 1833; Dwelly 1911) are deemed to be based on Scots or Eng. kick and are omitted.
(2) The senses ‘affected; affected person; affectation’ (Armstrong 1825; so also MacLeod and Dewar 1833 and Dwelly 1911) appear to be ghost senses and are omitted. Under ceigean, Armstrong (1825) includes ‘Macintyre “an affected person” ’. This may be a reference to the use of ceigean in Donnchadh Bàn Mac an t-Saoir’s an ceigean maol odhar gun àdh in his ‘Òran do Charaid Tàilleir airson Cuairt Shuirghe’ (MacLeod 1978, 86–89: 88, line 1294), but which his editor Angus MacLeod translates ‘runt’, which accords with the sense ‘diminutive person’ etc.
(3) The sense ‘canting’ (Dwelly 1911) appears to be a ghost sense and is omitted. Under Eng. canting adj., Armstrong (1825) gives ‘crabhach, fuar chrabhach, cealgach; ràsanach (affected), ceigeach, ceigeanach’ [sic]. Initially, Armstrong employs cràbhach ‘pious’, fuar-chràbhach ‘hypocritical’ and cealgach ‘deceitful’ to reflect Eng. canting in the sense ‘affecting religious phraseology; talking with an affectation’. He then gives ràsanach ‘discordant, monotonous, grating, also a dull prosing speaker’ (Armstrong). However, ràsanach (along with the parenthetic affected) seems to belong before the semi-colon, together with fuar-chràbhach etc., leaving ceigeach and ceigeanach (after the semi-colon) to cover Eng. canting in the senses ‘tilting, slanting, sloping, turning over’, where ceigeach and ceigeanach may be derivatives of ceig in the sense ‘kick’ (see (1), above).
(4) Ceig appears in the bawdy song ‘Marbhrainn Máiri nian Ean Mhic-Eun’ (Mac-Donuill 1751, 153–58: 154):

’S ann agad fein tha ’n eig,
Gann oirleach bheag o d’ noig;
Le ball chomhrag ri creig,
Chuireadh long bheag air flod:
Da fhichid bliaghn’ man heist,
Go ’n bhreo do chroit, ’s go ’n ghrod;
Gur iomad fear a cheig,
’S a bhrod le cead do roig.

The 1834 edition reads (p. 201):
’S ann agad fein tha ’n eig,
Gann oirleach bheag o d’ noig;
Le ball cho rag ri creig,
Chuireadh long bheag air flod:
Da fhichid bliadhn’ man theist
Gun bhreo do chroit, ’s gun ghrod;
Gur iomadh fear a cheig,
’S a bhrod, le cead, do noig.

[?‘What a crack you have,
just an inch from your arse;
with a rock-hard tool,
a small ship could be floated [there]:
[after] forty years tethered^a [to the bed],
your fanny^b has putrified and rotted;
many a man has ogled^c
and poked, with permission, your arse.’]

Notes:
(a) 1751: man heist, 1834: man theist. Black (2001, 397) takes man heist to mean ‘ “... around Heist”, presumably referring to the anchorage at the head of Loch Eishort in Strath, Skye.’ This assumes mun Heist, with the preposition mu ‘around’ + the article. Yet it would be unexpected to find the place-name SG Heast(a) inflected as Heist, albeit that it stands in dative position, let alone after the article. The 1834 edition appears to make sense of man heist by assuming that it is in error for man theist ?in the sense ‘according to reputation’ (with SG teist ‘testimony’). The alternative suggested above assumes that man heist is in error for man fheist ‘tethered, lit. around the tether’ (with SG feist, s.v.).
(b) croit may have the sense ‘mound’ here, in the context ‘mons pubis, pubic mound’ and, by extension, ‘vulva, fanny’, as suggested above.
(c) cheig may be the (len.) past tense of ceig ‘to kick etc.’ (< Scots or Eng. kick) or perhaps of *ceig in the sense ‘to peer etc.’ (< Scots keek), therefore ‘to ogle’ as suggested above.

Whatever the precise meaning of ceig in this poem, it is omitted below.

of SG ceig and its derivatives

SG ceig has the senses ‘shag, i.e. compressed or matted hair or wool, and (by extension) clot, lump, bunch’, and may go back to MScots cake in the sense ‘a flat piece or mass of something’ (cf. DOST^˄ 

SND^˄ gives Scots cake [ke:k], (Northern Scots, also) [kjɑ(:)k], while The Online Scots Dictionary gives cake [kek], (Mid Northern Scots) [kja(ː)k].

). Several derivatives are formed regularly in Gaelic: ceigean, with the diminutive suffix -an; ceigeach and ceigeanach, 

Ceigeandach for ceigeineach is likely to be through contamination with adjectives in -anda (-anta), e.g. bioganta ‘sharp, thrilling’, biorganta ‘vexatious’, borrganta ‘swelling; fierce’ (Dieckhoff 1932, s.vv.).

with the adjectival suffix -ach; ceigeanachd, with the abstract noun suffix -achd; the verb ceig, and ceigeadh, with the verbal-noun suffix -adh.