Gàidhlig / English
Liath-reòthadh

Liath-reòthadh

Posted by Calum on 9mh am Faoilleach, 2020
Happy New Year to you all! I hope that you have a happy, fun and peaceful Holiday over the new year. We have the remainder of winter ahead of us in the coming months, although the fun isn’t over or done yet, and we have been very lucky (some of us anyway) that we have have not had any snow or bad frosty weather. I remembered the phrase “’S e an Ullag [Nollaig] dhubh a dh’fhàgas an cladh mèith” (“It’s the black [without snow] winter that leaves the grave plump”), that I read in a Dictionary of MacKay Country Gaelic by Seumas Grannd, over the holidays but I remembered that it wouldn’t be long until we would have snow, ice or frosty weather again. There were times when “liath-reòthadh” [hoar-frost] would be found in some parts of Scotland so I decided I would write a blog about different words for hoar-frost.

We have Liath-reodhadh from Scalpay, Isle of Harris, and this is the most common word we have in “Fieldwork” in Glenurquhart, Oldshoremore (Kinlochbervie) and Polbain. There were variations of them with Liantach and Lionach in Port Charlotte (Ìle), Reothadh-liath in Embo, Sutherland and Sioc-chrann in the Isle of Skye. In our notes it’s evident that Liantach comes from “liath-eighean(t)ach”, with “eigheann(t)ach” being another word for “reothadh”.

“Crith-reòthadh” was found in “Some Unrecorded Words And Meanings In The Gaelic Of Badenoch in the book” in the Transactionf of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 1950, by R. Barron. This is interesting in the way it uses “crith” instead of “liath”, almost to mean that it’s so cold that we are “shaking” with the cold.

On the website Learngaelic.scot the words here are for hoar-frost: Sioc-bàn, Liathanach, Leathnach, Crìon-reòthadh. The same words can be found in the Faclair Beag with little variations of them and the word doinid meaning “extreme cold, hoar frost”.
Do you know of any other words for “liath-reòthadh”? Let us know on facebook, twitter and our website!
 
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