DASG Blog

Clabaisteir

After seeing non-stop news in the media of a certain president’s visit to Scotland recently, I thought I would look up a few relevant words to accurately describe the man who was so kind as to pay our country a visit. It turns out there are several appropriate descriptive words to be in found in Faclan bhon t-Sluagh. I am going to share these with you should you ever be in need of a good Gaelic insult or two. Whilst I don’t endorse using these words often, I’m sure we have all been inclined now and again, and there is certainly no shortage of descriptive terms like these in Gaelic!

The word clabaisteir meaning ‘a large, clumsy person’ specifically referring to a male, comes from an informant from South Uist, but was collected by A. O’Henley in Glasgow in the 80’s. The word also appears in Faclair Beag but spelt clabastair meaning ‘loudmouth, bigmouth’. We don’t have much more information on this word but I just really appreciated the sound and meaning of it and couldn’t leave it off the list.

The word bumalair meaning ‘a raw clumsy person’ in Scalpay, and ‘a large bumbling man’ in Lewis appears in Faclan bhon t-Sluagh. It was also recorded in South Uist used for somebody with a big head, and in Barra for somebody who did not know how to behave properly.
 
Whilst all of the above words refer mainly to men, there are also plenty of derogatory terms used by the Gaels for women: òinseach was recorded in Glasgow by an informant from South Uist, and glaoichd also appears, both meaning ‘a foolish woman’. If you wanted to describe ‘a lazy, useless woman’ you could use the word sglogaid which was recored in Harris – although I would not recommend saying this to her face!

A few more words appeared in an issue of Deò-Greine which we have been working on recently, and which should be available on our website in the not too distant future. The words dùrananach — ‘an obstinate blockhead’ — faoin-cheann – ‘empty head’ — and pusachan – ‘a whiny fellow’ — all appeared on a list of ‘Gaelic Terms Expressive of Affection, and Terms of Invective’ which won the first prize at the Mod in Glasgow back in 1901. If you’re interested in reading the list in full you can find it here.

If you’re still looking for more to add to your collection, there’s pleabain which is used for a ‘a skinny, miserable, useless looking character with no obvious personality’, and was taken from an informant from South Uist. Or alternatively we have luidsear — ‘a clumsy person who is always dropping things’ — which comes from Lewis, but is also found on the LearnGaelic dictionary with the meaning ‘idiot, dolt’.

If you know of any more interesting words (insults) like these, or if you have any personal favourites please let us know on Facebook or Twitter.