feum

Latin

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French or Old Occitan feu/fieu; see the main entry for more.

Noun

feum n (genitive feī); second declension

  1. (Medieval Latin) alternative form of feudum (fief, fee)

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

singular plural
nominative feum fea
genitive feī feōrum
dative feō feīs
accusative feum fea
ablative feō feīs
vocative feum fea

Middle English

Noun

feum

  1. alternative form of fume

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish feidm (effort), from Proto-Celtic *wedesman, from Proto-Indo-European *wedʰ- (to lead). Cognate with Irish feidhm.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /feːm/

Noun

feum m (genitive singular feuma or fèim)

  1. need, necessity
    ann 'am fheumin my time of need
    'S e am feum a thug air sin a dhèanamh.Dire necessity made him do that.
  2. use, usefulness
    Chan eil feum annad.There is no use in you.
    Dè is feum dha?What is the use of it?
    Is beag feum a tha ort.You are quite useless.
  3. poverty
  4. worth
  5. occasion
    Chan eil feum ort.There is no occasion for (or need of) you.

Derived terms

  • dèan feum de (use, exploit, make use of, utilize, verb)
  • feumach (necessitous, needful, needy)
  • feumail (useful, beneficial, helpful, handy, of use, serviceable, requisite)
  • gun fheum (useless, needless; uselessly, needlessly)
  • mì-fheum m (abuse, misapplication)

Verb

feum

  1. (intransitive) to need to, have to, must
  2. (transitive) to need

Inflection

The future tense feumaidh is used with present meaning:

  • feumaidh miI must

Mutation

Mutation of feum
radical lenition
feum fheum

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) “feum”, 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), “feidm”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language