v1.0
Published 01/10/24
lumhair m.
After Armstrong (1825).
, also lumhaire, ‘a type of diver’ is cited in Forbes 1905, 33, 265,
So Dwelly (1911).
and derived by Lockwood (1963, 56; 1971, 23) from ON lómr m. ‘red-throated diver, Gavia stellata’ (ibid.).
In deriving SG lumhair, lumhaire from ON lómr, Lockwood (1963, ibid.) contrasts Ir. lóma and lúma (Dinneen 1947: ‘great northern diver, loon’), which Lockwood also derives from ON lómr, ‘assuming that these have not been borrowed from English’. While Marstrander (≈1910, 401–02) also suggests that Ir. lóma (Great Blasket Island) [lũːmə] is from ON lómr, McDonald (2009, 383; 2015, 127) considers the loan uncertain. ON lómr yields Eng. loom, which in turn yields loon (OED˄, s.v. 2loom, 2loon), and Scots loom (SND˄, s.v.) and (Shetland) lum [lūm] (Jakobsen 1928). While ON lóm acc. might yield Ir. lóma, there can be no formal connection with Ir. lumh-, lúmh-. Neither is there any apparent connection between either lóma or lumh-, lúmh- and EG lomair, lomar, which partly from its context is translated ‘unfledged bird, or its down’: Essine .i. ess ⁊ én. ess din (fo díultad) quod non encadacht [In the margin: esene din niencedacht] .i. ni rothectustar clúm. Essine din ni hén clúmda acht lumar (see Early Irish Glossaries Database˄, Sanas Cormaic B.321) (‘Essíne “an unfledged bird”, i.e. ess- and én “bird”: ess- is a negative, quod non én-cadacht, i.e. it has not got feathers. Essíne then (is) not a feathered bird but callow’ (≈Stokes 1868, 64)). eDIL˄ compares EG lomm adj. ‘bare’ and lommraiḋ vb ‘shears’.
Forbes’s sources are likely to be Armstrong (1825: lumhair, misquoting Shaw) and Shaw (1780: lumhaire). Armstrong notes that Irish also has lumhair; in fact, O’Reilly (1817) gives lumhaire, O’Brien (1768) lúmhaire and Lhuyd (1707, 431) lumhaire; the only sense ever given is ‘diver’. While Shaw’s lumhaire is most probably a ghost word adopted from Irish, Ir. lúmhaire seems likely to be a by-form of Ir. luamhaire, EG lúaṁaire ‘pilot, steersman’, from EG lúaṁ ‘idem’ (< EG luí ‘steering-oar, rudder’ + the agentive suffix -aṁ) + the agentive suffix -aire (Kelly 1990; eDIL˄).
For EG luí as the base of SG luidhean ‘ankle’, see Ó Maolalaigh 2020, 267–68.