cèile

See also: céile and -cèile

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish céile (“servant, bondsman, vassal, subject; liege, vassal; fellow, companion; husband, wife”), from Primitive Irish ᚉᚓᚂᚔ (celi, “follower, devotee (genitive)”), from Proto-Celtic *keiliyos.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [kʰʲeːlɪ], /kʰʲeːlə/

Noun

cèile m or f (genitive singular cèile, plural cèilean)

spouse, husband, wife
Chan eil cèile agam. ― I don't have a husband/wife/spouse.
counterpart, fellow; equal, match
other
An dèidh sin, phòg iad a chèile. ― After that they kissed each other.

Bha iad a' bruidhinn ri chèile. ― They were speaking with each other.

Tha na taighean caob math bho chèile. ― The houses are a good bit apart [from one another].
servant

Derived terms

an sreath a chèile (“in a row”)
-cèile (“-in-law”)
céile-Dé m (“preserver of the fires; culdee”)
freagair a chèile (“agree, correspond”)
le chèile (“together; both”)
sreath chèile (“in a row”)
tro-chèile (“confused; upset; untidy”)

Adverb

cèile

alternative form of a chèile

Mutation

Mutation of *cèile*
radical	lenition
cèile	chèile

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Scottish Gaelic.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

References

Edward Dwelly (1911) “cèile”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary]‎^[1], 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “céile”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language