leprechaun
pronunciation
How to pronounce leprechaun in British English:
UK [ˈleprəkɔ:n]
How to pronounce leprechaun in American English:
US ['leprəkɔn]
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- Noun:
- a mischievous elf in Irish folklore
Word Origin
- leprechaun
- leprechaun: [17] Leprechaun means literally ‘little body’. It comes from an Irish compound noun made up of the adjective lu ‘little’ and corp ‘body’ (a borrowing from Latin corpus). Its original Old Irish form was luchorpán, and in modern Irish this became leipracán. The first record of its use in English is in Thomas Middleton’s Honest whore 1604: ‘as for your Irish lubrican, that spirit whom by preposterous charms thy lust hath rais’d in a wrong circle’.=> corpse
- leprechaun (n.)
- c. 1600, from Irish lupracan, metathesis of Old Irish luchorpan literally "a very small body," from lu "little" (from PIE *legwh- "having little weight;" see light (adj.)) + corpan, diminutive of corp "body," from Latin corpus "body" (see corporeal). Commonly spelled lubrican in 17c. English. Leithbragan is Irish folk etymology, from leith "half" + brog "brogue," because the spirit was "supposed to be always employed in making or mending a single shoe."
Example
- 1. Get your short ass on , you leprechaun .
- 2. And we 're getting matching leprechaun tattoos .
- 3. There is an evil leprechaun that lives in vaginas of unmarried women and he only leaves after the marriage ceremony is finished .
- 4. A leprechaun dances to fiddle music in an isolated wood with magic mushrooms and a wooden elf house .
- 5. On march 17 - st. patrick 's day - you may be luckier than a leprechaun , for the sun will meet with your ruler , uranus , in your house of earned income .