ONlwSG

v1.0
Published 01/10/24

drabh m. [d̪̥ɾav], [d̪̥ɾav̥], gen. draibh [d̪̥ɾɛv], [d̪̥ɾɛv̥], ‘draff, spent grain’. Craigie (1894, 164) tentatively derives Ir. and SG drabh, drabhag ‘deposit, dregs, sediment’ from ON draf, while noting MEng. draf. MacBain (1911) derives SG drabh vb ‘to dissolve’, drabhag ‘dregs’, drabhas ‘filth’ and the initial element of EG draḃarṡlóġ ‘rabble’ (eDIL^˄) from Eng. draff, while noting the cognates Germ. Treber and ON draf; 

While Stokes thinks the Gaelic word is cognate with rather than borrowed from English (ibid.). Note Ir. dramhaíl < dramhfhuigheall ‘refuse’ < dramh ‘refuse etc.’ (Dinneen 1947; Ó Dónaill 1977: drámh) + fuigheall (fuíoll) ‘remainder, remains’, ?with an initial element drabh, dramh from Eng. draff (cf. Vendryes 1996, s.v. drabar-).

MacBain also lists dràbh vb ‘to scatter, dissolve’ and dràbhach ‘wide-sutured, rifted’ (as opposed to drabh and drabhach, with short vowels, as cited in HSS 1828). MacLennan (1925) takes SG drabh ‘draff, grain’ back to EG drabh and OCelt. drabo-, 

?After Falk (ibid.).

while noting ON draf. McDonald (2009, 349) discusses (1) Ir. and SG drabh, drabhaidh 

?For drabhadh.

‘draff, grains of malt after the juice is extracted; untidy person’ and (2) Ir. and SG drabh, drabhag ‘rifted, wide-sutured’; he considers a derivation of the former from ON draf in the sense ‘draff, husk’ uncertain, but a derivation of the latter from ON draf in the sense ‘pleats, tucks’ (sic) to be likely. There is a degree of confusion here.

ON draf nt. is found in the sense ‘refuse, scraps, waste’ (NO); de Vries (1962) notes that the sense ‘dregs, sediment’, while it occurs in Nn. drav, OSw. draf, Sw. drav and Dan. drav, is not found in Old Norse – cf. Ice. draf nt. ‘draff, husks’ (Cleasby 1874; Zoëga 1910). OED^˄ takes Eng. draff ‘refuse, dregs, lees; wash or swill given to swine; hog's-wash; specifically the refuse or grains of malt after brewing or distilling; brewer's grains’ back to early MEng. draf, which probably represents an unrecorded OEng. *dræf, corresponding to MDut. and Dut. draf, Ice. draf, Sw. drav, Dan. drav ‘sediment of a brewing, grains, husks’ and so on, and considers that Ir. and SG drabh ‘grains of malt’ are ‘probably’ from English.

Two Scottish Gaelic words are relevant here: A. drabh, with a short vowel, and B. and C. dràbh, with a long vowel; details of their forms and derivatives are given below:

A. SG drabh
A 1. SG drabh [d̪̥ɾav], [d̪̥ɾav̥] ‘draff, spent grain’
(i) drabh: Shaw (1780: ‘grains’); Mac Farlan (1795: ‘draff, grains’); MacFarlane (1817: ‘draff, grains’); Armstrong (1825: ‘grains, draff, malt after its juice is extracted’); M^cAlpine (1832: [drăv] ‘draff, grain’); HSS (1828: ‘refuse’); MacLeod and Dewar (1839: ‘draff, grains of malt’); Dwelly (1911: ‘draff, grains of malt after the juice is extracted’); AFB^˄ (/draf/ ‘draff, spent grain’); by extension, also in the sense ‘untidy person’ (Dwelly 1911: Uist), ‘untidy person, slouch, idler, lazybones’ (AFB^˄);
(ii) dràbh: MacFhearghuis (1995, 13), translating Scots draff; 

MacFhearghuis incorrectly quotes ‘qunill neither wort nor draft are left unsuppit ait thair’ for ‘quhill neither wort nor draff are left unsuppit out thair’ from R. W. Munro’s edition (Munro 1961, 78) of Monro’s description of the Western Isles of Scotland (c. 1549); Munro’s edition is based upon Sibbald’s MS. The first printed edition of the description (Monro 1774, 36), based upon Balfour’s MS, reads ‘quhilk they leave nather wirt or draffe unsuppit out ther’, with variant forms of MScots wort and draf(f) . For an account of the MS tradition, see Munro ibid., 148–52.


(iii) dràibh, with long è, in the sense ‘untidy worker’ (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: Skye).

A 2. SG drabhach adj.
(with the adjectival suffix -ach)
AFB^˄ (/dravəx/ ‘pertaining to or abounding in draff or spent grain’); by extension, also in the sense ‘dirty, untidy, foulmouthed person’ (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: [d̪ɾɑfɑx], North Uist).

A 3. SG drabhag f.
(with the nominally diminutive suffix -ag)
(i) drabhag: Shaw (1780: ‘dregs, lees’); Armstrong (1825: ‘lees, dregs, sediment’); Dwelly (1911: ‘dregs, lees, sediment, refuse, faeces’); Dieckhoff (1932: [drawag] ‘dregs’); AFB^˄ (/dravag/ ‘draff, spent grain, dregs, lees, faeces, tiny or infinitesimal amount’); by extension, also in the sense ‘little filthy slattern’ (Dwelly), ‘slut’ (AFB^˄);
(ii) dràbhag, with a long stressed vowel: Mac Farlan (1795: ‘dregs, lees’); MacFarlane (1817: ‘lees, dreggs’); HSS (1828: ‘dregs, lees, refuse’); MacLeod and Dewar (1839: ‘dregs, lees, sediment, refuse’); MacLennan (1925: ‘dregs’); by extension, also in the sense ‘a little filthy slattern’ (ibid.; HSS 1828);
(iii) drábhag, with an acute rather than a grave accent (MacDomhnuill 1741, 24: ‘dreggs or settlings’).

A 4. SG drabhagach adj.
(with the adjectival suffix -ach)
(i) drabhagach: Shaw (1780: ‘dreggy’); Armstrong (1825: ‘full of lees or sediment, like lees or sediment’);
(ii) dràbhagach, with a long stressed vowel: MacFarlane (1817: ‘dreggy’); HSS (1828: ‘full of dregs, foul’); MacLeod and Dewar (1839: ‘full of dregs, foul’);
(iii) dràbhogach: Mac Farlan (1795: ‘dreggy’).

A 5. SG drabhas m.
(with the nominal suffix -as)
(i) drabhas: Mac Farlan (1795: ‘nastiness’); MacFarlane (1817: ‘filthiness’); Armstrong (1825: ‘filthiness of speech, obscenity, smut’); HSS (1828: ‘turbulence, filth, foul weather’); M^cAlpine (1832: ‘filth’); MacLeod and Dewar (1839: ‘filthiness of speech, obscenity, smut, turbulence, filth, foul weather’); MacLennan (1925: ‘filth, foul weather’); Dieckhoff (1932: [drawas] ‘dirtiness’);
(ii) drabhais, with a palatal final: Ó Murchú (1989, 330: /dravaš/ ‘rubbish, foul weather’, East Perthshire).

A 6. SG drabhasach adj.
(with the adjectival suffix -ach)
Mac Farlan (1795: ‘indelicate’); MacFarlane (1817: ‘filthy, indelicate’); Armstrong (1825: ‘filthy, indelicate in speech, obscene’); HSS (1828: ‘foul, turbulent of weather’); MacLeod and Dewar (1839: ‘foul, turbulent of weather, filthy, indelicate of speech, obscene’); McDonald (1972: with medial [v], ‘foul, filthy of a person’).

A 7. SG drabhasachd f.
(with the abstract noun suffix -achd)
Armstrong (1825: ‘filthiness of speech, obscenity’).

A 8. SG drabhasta adj.
(with a reflex of the adjectival suffix EG -ḋ(a)e after -s (Cox 2017, 152 + fn 8))
drabhasda: Armstrong (≈1825: ‘filthy in speech, obscene, smutty; uncouth – written also drabasda’) and Dwelly (1911: ‘see drabasda’), both of whom display confusion with SG drabasta (drabasda) ‘dirty; obscene’.

B. SG dràbh
B 1. SG dràbh vb [d̪̥ɾaːv], [d̪̥ɾɑu] ‘to separate, disperse’
(i) dràbh: M^cAlpine (1832: [drâv] ‘scatter as a multitude, bulge as a wall’); MacLennan (1925: [drâv] ‘dissolve, scatter as a multitude, bulge as a wall’);
(ii) drabh, without lengthmark: HSS (1828: ‘dissolve, decay’); MacLeod and Dewar (1839: ‘dissolve, solve, decay’); Dwelly (1911: ‘dissolve, solve, decay, scatter as a multitude, bulge as a wall); AFB^˄ (/drau/ ‘separate, disperse, dissolve, bulge’);
(iii) dràibh: Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄ (‘scatter, dissolve’).

B 2. SG dràbhadh m.
(with the verbal noun suffix -adh)
(i) dràbhadh: MacFarlane (1817: ‘separating’); M^cAlpine (1832: [drâv´-Ă] ‘separating as a crowd, bulging as a wall’;
(ii) drabhadh, without lengthmark: Armstrong (1825: ‘separating, separation’); HSS (1828: ‘separating, dissolving, running out, decaying’: chaidh a[’] chùis gu drabhadh ‘the thing is gone to decay’); MacLeod and Dewar (1839: ‘separating, dissolving, running out, decaying’);
(iii) dràghadh: McDonald (1972: ‘tighinn o chéile, rending, splitting, opening’), either with phonemic interchange between bh and gh or with gh marking hiatus; 

Cf. SG draghadh in the sense ‘dragging, pulling’, s.v. dragh.


(iv) draghadh: Dwelly (1911) and AFB^˄, in the senses ‘parting, separating’, cf. (iii).

B 3. SG dràbh, dràibh sb.
Replacing dràbhadh (see B 2(ii), above), following the preposition gu or do^L (a^L) in the sense ‘[to go] to ruin’:
(i) dràbh: M^cAlpine (1832: ‘ruination, ruin’: chaidh e dhràibh ‘it or he has gone to pigs and whistles, he is gone to ruin’);
(ii) drabh, without lengthmark: Dwelly (1911: ‘ruin’: chaidh e do dhrabh/a dhrabh ‘he has gone to pigs and whistles or ruin’);
(iii) dràibh: McDonald (1972: dràibh or drèabh, with [æː], Uist: tha e air dol gu dràibh ‘he has gone to wreck and poverty’); Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄ (s.v. dràibh vb: dol gu draibh [sic] ‘go[ing] to ruin’);
(iv) draibh, without lengthmark: AFB^˄ (rach a dhraibh ‘go to (rack and) ruin!’).

B 4. dràbhach adj.
(with the adjectival suffix -ach)
(i) dràbhach: HSS (1828: ‘rifted, fissured, ill-cemented’); MacLeod and Dewar (1839: ‘rifted, fissured, ill-cemented’);
(ii) drabhach, without lengthmark: Dwelly (1911: ‘rifted, fissured, ill-cemented, diverging’); Wentworth (2003, s.v. apart: [d̥rɑ.ɔx] ‘becoming open, fissured’); AFB^˄ (/dravəx/ ‘cracked, fissured, rifted, ill-cemented’).

B 5. dràbhag f.
(with the nominally diminutive suffix -ag)
(i) dràbhag: M^cAlpine (1832: ‘a market thinly attended, a scattered multitude’);
(ii) drabhag, without lengthmark: Dwelly (1911: ‘market thinly attended, scattered multitude’).

C. SG †dràbh m. ‘cart’
drabh, without lengthmark: Shaw (1780); Armstrong (1825: ‘rarely, a cart’); HSS (1828: ‘cart’); Dwelly (1911: ‘rarely, cart’).

On the one hand, SG drabh [d̪̥ɾav], [d̪̥ɾav̥] ‘draff, spent grain’ is likely to derive directly from Scots draff [draf] ‘idem’ (SND^˄), hence the derivatives SG drabhach adj. ‘pertaining to or abounding in draff’ and drabhag f. ‘dregs, lees’ and the adjective drabhagach. SG drabh is also found in the sense ‘untidy, dirty, foul-mouthed person’ (cf. Scots draff in compounds in the sense ‘imperfection, fault; lazy glutton’ or as a term of abuse (SND^˄ ibid.)), hence SG drabhas ‘dirt, filth, nastiness’, the adjective drabhasach and the abstract noun drabhasachd f.; also drabhasta, via confusion with SG drabasta (drabasda) ‘dirty; obscene’).

On the other hand, SG dràbh [d̪̥ɾaːv], [d̪̥ɾɑu] in the sense ‘to separate; disperse’ appears to derive from Scots draw vb [drɑː] in the senses ‘to draw out, pull out; infuse’, hence the derivatives SG dràbhadh m. ‘separating, separation’ and dràbhag f. ‘a dispersed entity’ and the adjective dràbhach; also the nominal use of dràbh in the sense ‘bits and piece → wrack and ruin’ and in the sense ‘cart’ (for the latter, cf. Scots draw vb in the sense ‘to cart’).

However, drabh and dràbh and their derivatives have been confused to the extent that some of the former also occur with a long stressed vowel, while the latter also occur with a short stressed vowel. Unintentional spelling errors aside, this may be partly due to the influence of drabh and dràbh and their derivatives upon each other; in the case of drabhach → dràbhach and drabhag → dràbhag, it may also be partly through confusion with SG dràbach adj. ‘dirty, nasty, slovenly, oozy’ and dràbag f. ‘slattern, obscene-tongued female’ (Dwelly 1911), which MacBain (1911) derives from Eng. drab.

Forms and Derivatives of SG drabh and SG dràbh

A number of related Irish words are cited: drabh ‘draff’ (Armstrong 1825; HSS 1828; Craigie 1894, 164; McDonald 2009, 349), ‘cart’ (Armstrong; HSS), ‘rifted’ (McDonald); drabhadh ‘draff’ (ibid.: drabhaidh [sic]); drabhag ‘dregs’ (HSS), ‘rifted’ (McDonald); and drabhas ‘filth, foul weather’ (HSS; M^cAlpine 1832). They are probably ghost words: they only occur in O’Reilly’s (1817) Irish dictionary: drabh ‘cart’, drabh ‘grains, refuse’, drabhadh ‘separating’, drabhóg ‘dregs, lees’, drabhas ‘dirt, nastiness’, also drabhasach 'dirty, filthy', and are probably adaptations of Scottish Gaelic equivalents from Shaw 1780, Mac Farlan 1795 and/or MacFarlane 1815.