v1.0
Published 01/10/24
pleadhan m. [ˈpʰləɣan], [ˈpʰleɣan], [ˈpʰlɛɣan] (or with medial [ɣ] replaced by hiatus or occasionally [h]), gen. -ain -[æɲ], -[ɛɲ], ‘paddle; dibble; spurtle; small leg; worthless implement or thing’ has the variant forms bleaghan m.,
With p ~ b alternation in Gaelic.
spleadhan m.
With prothetic s-.
and pleadhag f.
MacDomhnuill 1741, 51: càlphleadhag ‘dibble’ (< SG càl m. ‘cabbage’ + pleadhag, lenited as the nominal element in a closed compound); Shaw 1780: pleadhag, pleadhan; HSS 1828: bleaghan, pleadhan, pleaghan, pleadhag, pleaghag; McAlpine 1832: pleadhag [plè´-ag]; MacBain 1911: bleaghan, pleadhag, spleadhan; MacLennan 1925: bleaghan, pleadhag [plu-ag], pleadhan, spleadhan; Dieckhoff 1932: pleadhan [plean]; MacAskill 1966, 83: (Uist) pleadhag, (Barra) pleadhan); McDonald 1972: (South Uist) pleadhag, (Barra) pleadhan; Wentworth 2003: (Gairloch) s.vv. spurtle, [flimsy bit of] wood: pleadhan [pʰl’eɣan]; Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄: (Benbecula) bleaghan, (Barra) pleadhan, (Skye) pleadhag, pleathag [plɛhaɡ], (location not specified) plèag, pliag.
MacBain (1911) suggests bleaghan may be from ON blað nt. ‘blade’, Eng. blade; so also Henderson (1910, 214); McDonald (2009, 342) is uncertain. Assuming the final syllable in bleaghan is the Gaelic suffix -an, a medial non-palatal gh or dh
Non-palatal gh and dh have the same value in modern Scottish Gaelic, nominally /ɣ/ [ɣ].
might represent earlier non-palatal /ð/ [ð] in Gaelic (before it fell together with /ɣ/ [ɣ]), from an original ON ð; yet non-palatal [ɫ̪] /ʟ/ rather than phonemically palatal [l] /l´/ would be expected before a in Gaelic.
On the one hand, the senses ‘paddle; dibble; small leg; spurtle’ seem likely to derive from Scots *pleuchan- or pleochan-paidle ‘ploughstaff, a spade or implement for cleaning ploughshares’, with variant forms of Scots pleuch, pleoch ‘plough’ and pattle, pettle ‘paddle’ (SND˄). While SG pleadhan and its variants retain the full semantic load of the Scots compound, they are truncated forms, albeit they preserve the primarily stressed adjectival element rather than weakly stressed nominal element of the original. On the other hand, the sense ‘worthless implement or thing’ seems to derive from Scots playok, playak ‘plaything, toy’ (SND˄), playock, playick ‘plaything, trifle’ (Warrack 1911), < Scots play + the diminutive suffix -ock. However, assuming that SG pleadhan formally represents Scots *pleuchan or pleochan and that SG pleadhag formally represents Scots playok or playak, the Gaelic forms along with their senses have become interchangeable.
Ir. pleaghán ‘small oar or paddle’, recorded for Achill, Co. Mayo (Dinneen 1947), is probably a loan from Scottish Gaelic.
Derivatives: (adjectives) pleadhagach, pleadhanach; (abstract noun) pleadhanachd f.; (verbs) pleadhagaich, pleadhaich; (verbal nouns) pleadhagachadh m.; pleadhagaich f.; (agent noun) pleadhair m. (HSS 1828); and (verbal noun) pleadh m. (AFB˄).