ONlwSG

ceis f., gen. ?ceise, in the sense ‘round belly’ is derived by Mackay (1897, 96: ceiss [sic]) from Ice. keisi [leg. keis] f. ‘idem’ (Cleasby 1874).

Understandably perhaps, McDonald (2009, 371) considers the loan unlikely given the lack of reference to SG ceiss in the standard range of lexical works: double ss does not occur in the modern Scottish Gaelic orthographic system.

Whether Mackay’s ceis contains a short vowel ([kʲʰeʃ]) or should be read as cèis with a long vowel ([kʲʰeːʃ]) is unclear: his use of lengthmarks is sporadic. The context Mackay provides is the Scottish Gaelic phrase is ann air tha a cheis [sic], so Dwelly App. (s.v. ceis 

Which is altered to céis in AFB^˄.

) is ann air tha a’ cheis

With the spelling of the leniting form of the radical feminine article before nouns in c- corrected.

‘what a large belly he has’; however, MacLennan (1925, s.v. céiseach) gives nach ann air tha chéis 

With elision of the article.

(‘used with reference to a man of unusual size’), and AFB^˄ gives ‘large/round/fat belly’ (adopted from Dwelly App.’s ceis) as a secondary sense under céis (‘farrow, sow’ – see below) with a long vowel.

OIce. keis would of course be expected to yield SG cèis [kʲʰeːʃ] with a long vowel, while MacLennan assumes the Scottish Gaelic idiom contains an extended use of SG céis (cèis) ‘frame’ (< Eng. case), with a long vowel. Also in support of a long vowel, we can compare the semantically similar although syntactically dissimilar Irish idiom tá sé ina chéis ‘he is very fat or bloated’ 

Lit. ‘he is in his pig, i.e. he is a pig, i.e. he has the constitution of a pig’.

(Ó Dónaill 1977, s.v. céis ‘a young pig, slip’).

However, while Ir. céis ‘young pig etc.’ is well attested, 

O’Clery 1643: caois .i. caoi sásaidh no céis .i. on muic [probably with a Munster form spelt caois but pronounced céis, cf. Ir. faoi ‘under’, naoi ‘nine’ etc. pronounced with [eː] in Munster dialects (pers. comm. Professor Seòsamh Watson)]; Lhuyd 1707: ceis ‘furrow’ and (App.) ceis ‘sow’; O’Brien 1768: ceis ‘furrow’ and céis ‘sow’; O’Connell ?c. 1813 (cited in eDIL^˄): cés ‘a slip-pig or a young pig’; O’Reilly 1817: (in Gaelic script) céis and (in Roman script) ceis ‘a farrow, a young pig’; Dinneen 1947: céis ‘a young sow, a pig intermediate between a banbh and a full-grown pig’; Ó Dónaill 1977: céis ‘young pig, slip’. ?Cf. EG ces (?cés) ‘?haunch (of meat); flank’ (eDIL^˄, ⁴ces).

the same word in Scottish Gaelic has a more chequered history and may effectively be a ghost word adopted from Irish: Shaw 1780: ceis ‘furrow, sow, pig’; Armstrong 125: †ceis ‘furrow; sow, pig’ (Irish idem); HSS 1828: ceis ‘furrow (O’Brien), sow, pig (O’Reilly)’; MacLeod & Dewar 1831: †ceis ‘furrow, sow, pig’; Forbes 1905, 7, 197, 220: ceis ‘a farrow, sow or pig’; Dwelly 1911: ceis ‘farrow, sow or pig’; AFB^˄: céis ‘farrow, sow; large/round/fat belly’. Further, that Ir. céis is used idiomatically in tá sé ina chéis does not seem to establish beyond doubt that SG is ann air a tha a[’] cheis should be read as is ann air a tha a’ chèis: SG ceis with a short vowel in this context may simply be a loan from Scots case [kes] in the sense ‘case, condition’ (SND^˄), ‘case, shape, repair, size’ (Warrack 1911), while nach ann air a tha chéis may contain a loan from the English equivalent case (with a long vowel), as MacLennan suggests.

While an argument for a derivation from EG ces ‘debility, state of inertia; sickness’ (eDIL^˄, s.v. ¹ces) might be made, it would not account for the variation (if authentic) SG ceis ~ cèis.

SG cèiseach is listed by HSS (1828: céiseach) in the sense ‘full fat woman’, so also Dwelly (1911: céiseach ‘large corpulent woman’) and MacLennan (1925: ‘idem’). MacLennan suggests cèiseach goes back to SG cèis (< Eng. case), as above. MacBain (1896; 1911), on the other hand, compares SG ceòs ‘hip, rump’, hence ceòsach ‘broad-skirted, bulky, clumsy’. Carmichael (CG VI, 40, s.vv. ceiseach) records céiseach and céisleach ‘a loosely formed frowsy woman’: céisleach mhór mhnatha, which his editor Angus Matheson (ibid. 40–41, s.vv. ceiseach, ceus) suggests should be compared with SG ceusach, ciasach, ceòsach ‘big-hipped’; cf. Ir. céasán ‘narrow rump’ (Ó Dónaill 1977). (Unaccountably, AFB^˄ lists céiseach as an adjective ‘corpulent, fat’ rather than as a noun.)

For SG ceis in the sense ‘basket’, s.v. ciosan.