Gàidhlig / English
An Glutadh

An Glutadh

Posted by Shelagh on Thursday 3 September 2015

If you’re thinking of building a house in the future, this week’s featured word could be of use: an glutadh, sand or earth used to fill an inner wall cavity, as described by Ailean Boyd in his book Seann Taighean Tirisdeach (1986) which is included in the DASG Corpus:

The house was built with two stone walls (the outer wall and the inner wall) which were set between two and three feet apart.

The space between them was packed tightly with sand or with earth, and this was called an glutadh.

The word was collected for the Fieldwork Archive in both Lewis and Barra; the informant from Barra also gave a riddle connected to an glutadh:

Chan eil e muigh ’s chan eil e stigh ’s cha tig an taigh às aonais.

(It’s not inside and it’s not outside and there isn’t a house without it.)

Another informant from Lewis used the word glutradh with the above meaning, and said that glutadh meant ‘sediment in a drain.’ There was another spelling used in Berneray in Harris as well: glutranadh.

According to Dwelly’s dictionary, an glutadh stems from glut-lìonadh and can also be used as a verb: a’ glutadh or a’ glut-lìonadh. Glutadh can also mean ‘eating to excess’ or ‘gulping noisily,’ similar to the English word ‘gluttony.’

Have you ever used an glutadh when building? If so, let us know through Facebook or Twitter.

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