Page:Irish Lexicography.djvu/31

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ON IRISH LEXICOGRAPHY.
23

dhacht; 7. fortitudo, in t-shonarti; 8. justitia, in fhirinde; cf. also 110 β 15, 118 α 25, &c.; LU. 15 β 23, nír bo mór amainsi cáich díb frí araili; F. Mast. sub anno 1086, liuḃra lána d’aṁainsi ⁊ d’inntleaċt, “books replete with genius and intellect”; F. Mast. iii. 2374, tiġerna tend tóṫaċtaċ go ngaóis, go ngliocas ⁊ go n‑aṁainsi indtleaċta ⁊ aigneaḋ, “a powerful mighty lord, with wisdom, and subtlety, and profundity of mind and intellect”; M. Rath, p. 148, it is rendered foresight, and O’Curry (Lect., p. 580 penult. line) translates it cunning. But in LB. 118 α 25 this sense will not fit the passage—conad iar-sin dorat Dia nax plága amaindsi irdarca ar Forand con ill-tuathib ilarda Egepti ar-aen fris; and indeed O’Donovan, in M. Ragh, 202, renders ina ma h‑amainsi ocus na h‑ainigne tucais ar Ultaib “[more becoming] than to have annoyed and insulted the Ultonians”, &c.

The adj. amainsech is used in M. Rath, p. 160, oġ-briaṫra ána aṁainseċa na n‑airdrig, “the pure, noble, sapient words of monarchs”; whence the abstract in LL. 9 α 2, oc foglaim druidechta, ocus fessa, ocus fastini, ocus amainsechta, “learning wizardry, and knowledge, and prophecy, and amainsecht.”

The word aprisce is of not infrequent occurrence in the LB., and its meaning may be fairly gathered from the following examples:—LB. 49 β 32, ro-fhetatar a n‑enirte ocus a n‑aprisce fén, “they knew their weakness and fragility”; 51 β 6, aimser ind nu-fhiadnaise i ndlegar da cach iressach etarscarud fri h‑aprisce a thol collaide, “when it behoved each believer to separate from the inertness of his fleshly lusts”; 39 α 4, is ercradach ocus is aprisc, used to gloss ‘caduca et fragilis’; cf. 193 β 33, ro-fhetar-sa at-aiprisce na dóine, “I know that men are liable to fragility”; and 164 α 27, ro-thoirmisc umpu cotlud aimsire ocus utmaille menman, na ro-epletís i n‑aprisce peccaid, “he corrected (hindered) in them temporal sleepiness and instability of mind, lest they should die in the sluggishness of sin”; 165 α 61, co fesed Petar indus bud cóir aircisecht do’n foirind dogéntais imarbus tri‑a aiprisce is-in eclais, “that Peter might know how it was fitting to commiserate the people who committed sin through inadvertence”.

The following entry in Windisch’s glossary is unsatisfactory:—“díreccra, p. 191, 18: vgl. difhreagra, unanswerable, O’R.” There is great virtue in a vgl.; but I would rather Windisch had given his