v1.0
Published 01/10/24
drip f.
Masculine in McAlpine 1832.
[d̪̥ɾiʰp],
(Benbecula, Barra) drip (McDonald 1972, s.v. dreap), (Benbecula, Skye) /drihb/ (AFB˄: ‘bustle, hurry, haste’), (South Uist, Eriskay) dreap (McDonald 1972), (Gairloch) [d̥rihp] (Wentworth 2003, s.v. activity), (Glengarry) [dricb] (Dieckhoff 1932: ‘hurry’), (Islay) [drēp2] (McAlpine 1832: ‘predicament, hurry-burry; snare meant for another, but ensnaring the author of it’). Seòsamh Watson (pers. comm.) notes the sense ‘one’s work or profession’ from Easter Ross.
gen. dripe -[ə], ‘bustle, hurry, haste, confusion; want; affliction; snare; combat, fight; predicament, perplexity’ (Dwelly 1911). MacBain (1911) compares Ir. drip ‘bustle, snare’ and the roots *drippi-, *dhribh, noting Eng. drive and ON drepa ‘to hit’.
For the adjective SG dripeil [ˈd̪̥ɾiʰpal]
Cf. [drēp’´-al] (MacLennan 1925: ‘hurried, embarrassed; confused; busy, hard at work’), specifically (Benbecula, Barra) dripeil (McDonald 1972, s.v. dreap), (South Uist, Eriskay) dreapail (McDonald 1972), (Islay) [drēp’´-al] (McAlpine 1832 ‘embarrassed; confused’), (North Sutherland) dripeil (Grannd 2013, s.v. busy), (Easter Ross) /dribɑl/ (Watson 2022, 184: ‘busy’), (East Sutherland) (len.) /xriPal/ (Dorian 1978, 178, 180) and, with a ~ o alternation, (Gairloch) [d̥rihpɔl’] (Wentworth 2003, s.v. busy: dripeoil); and, with an alternative ending, (Bernera (Lewis)) [d̬riʰpəʟ] (Borgstrøm 1940, 29: ‘busy’), (Lewis) /dripəʟ/ (Oftedal 1956, 104: ‘busy’). AFB˄ records /drihbal/ for Benbecula, South Uist, Skye, Easter Ross, Fort William and Lewis.
‘busy’, Mackay (1897, 92: driopail) gives a derivation from Ice. drepa ‘to do a thing’; Oftedal (1956, 104), however, considers the word to be of doubtful origin.
McDonald (2009, 350) considers a Norse provenance for drip and dripeil uncertain.
A Scandinavian provenance for SG drip and dripeil seems unlikely: ON and Ice. drepa (primarily ‘to beat, strike’) would formally yield SG *dreab(a) *[d̪̥ɾeb̥(ə)], possibly *driob(a) (*drib(a)) *[d̪̥ɾib̥(ə)], but no such verb is attested in Scottish Gaelic.
O’Reilly (1815) lists Ir. drip ‘affliction’ and drip ‘snare’ separately, while Dinneen (1947) lists both drip (also drib) ‘snare; confusion, bustle, hurry’ and driopás (also griopás) ‘great hurry; plight, difficulty, mishap’.
Cf. (Galway) driopás /dr´u/ipɑːs/ ‘bustle, eagerness’, diospás /d´ispɑːs/ ‘keenness, industry’, triopás /tr´ipɑːs/ ‘idem’ (Ó Curnáin 2017 I, 281, and IV, 2244, 2365, 2469), (Mayo) driopás /dr´ipaːs/ ‘hurry’ (Mhac an Fhailigh 1980, 11) and (Rosguill, Donegal) driopás: sa driopás ‘in the lurch’ (Lúcás 1986). Ó Dónaill (1977) cross-references both drip and griopás to driopás. Cf. (Teelin, Donegal) cliopas ‘mishap, plight, misfortune’ (Uí Bheirn 1989). Hence (Donegal) driopásach ‘fussy (i.e. about food)’ (pers. comm. Professor Seòsamh Watson).
MacLennan (1925) compares SG drip with EG grip (leg. gripe) ‘swiftness’ (from the adjective EG grip ‘quick, swift’ (eDIL˄)), but the latter, which yields Ir. grib and SG †grib, is unlikely to be the same word, although the alternation driopás ~ griopás may, though need not, be the result of conflation with it.
For SG drip, Shaw (1780) gives the senses ‘affliction, snare’, Mac Farlan (1795) ‘snare, gin’, MacFarlane (1815) ‘affliction, snare’ and Armstrong (1825) ‘affliction, snare, perplexity, hurry’. In addition to drip in the senses ‘bustle, hurry, haste, confusion, want, affliction’, HSS (1828) lists the derivative adjectives dripeil ‘hurried, confused, embarrassed, urged by want’ and driopail ‘indigent, dripeil’, the noun driopall ‘mixture, anything confused’ and the derivative adjective driopallach.
A connection with Ir. triopallach ‘clustered, bunched; neatly gathered; neatly shaped; neat, tidy’ (Ó Dónaill 1977) (< early modern Ir. triopal ‘bunch, cluster’ (eDIL˄)) seems unlikely.
SG drip (> dripeil) and Ir. drip (> driopás) may well go back to Scots and/or Eng. trip,
From the verb trip, MEng. trip(pe)(n) (DOST˄; OED˄).
the sense ‘light quick movement’ on the one hand developing in Gaelic usage to ‘hurry, haste, perplexity, confusion, mixture’, and the sense ‘trip (up); mistake’ on the other developing in Gaelic usage to ‘snare; affliction, indigence’.
In terms of the sense ‘snare’, whether there is any connection with dialectal English drip ‘a trap to catch rats or mice’ is not known (EDDo˄, s.v. 1drip vb/sb. 5.: To set a ‘drip’ is to take a piece of board about 6 ins. square, and fix a nail in two opposite corners of it; then place this piece of wood (the drip) in the corner of a room ... A tub or large pan three parts full of water is placed directly under the ‘drip’ and the bait is put on the corner of the ‘drip’ furthest from the wall. The rat or mouse, in trying to reach the bait, overbalances the ‘drip’ and falls into the water beneath.).
For Scots usage, cf. EScots trip, tripp ‘a fault, misdemeanour’ (DOST˄, s.v. trip n.), Scots trip ‘a turn at dancing’ (SND˄), ‘a short dance’ (Warrack 1911); MScots trip ‘to go, proceed in a light or nimble fashion, to skip, flit; to step with a light-footed motion, to skip, dance; to prance’ (DOST˄) and Scots trip ‘to hurry, to go off quickly’ (Warrack ibid.).
For the development of Scots/Eng. trip to SG/Ir. drip, cf. EG treise ‘a period of three days’ > SG treis, dreis ‘a while’ (eDIL˄, s.v. 2treise; Cox 2017, 381 fn 11). SG drip yields the adjectival form dripeil, with final -/al´/, -/ɔl´/ or -/əʟ/, according to dialect; the alternation dripeil ~ driopail is cosmetic: there is no phonetic distinction. Ir. driopás (?from earlier *driopas, consisting of Ir. drip + the native abstract noun suffix -as) appears to be the result of influence from other words in Irish in final stressed -ás, e.g. fallás ‘deceit, falsehood’ (< AN fallas (Risk 1974, 79)) and sólás ‘solace’ (< AN solas (Risk 1970, 612, 655; 1974, 89)).
For the influence of the Anglo-Norman invasion on the stress patterns of Irish, see O’Rahilly 1976, 86–93.