welsh
pronunciation
How to pronounce welsh in British English:
UK [welʃ]
How to pronounce welsh in American English:
US [welʃ]
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- Verb:
- cheat by avoiding payment of a gambling debt
Word Origin
- Welsh (adj.)
- Old English Wielisc, Wylisc (West Saxon), Welisc, Wælisc (Anglian and Kentish) "foreign; British (not Anglo-Saxon), Welsh; not free, servile," from Wealh, Walh "Celt, Briton, Welshman, non-Germanic foreigner;" in Tolkien's definition, "common Gmc. name for a man of what we should call Celtic speech," but also applied in Germanic languages to speakers of Latin, hence Old High German Walh, Walah "Celt, Roman, Gaulish," and Old Norse Val-land "France," Valir "Gauls, non-Germanic inhabitants of France" (Danish vælsk "Italian, French, southern"); from Proto-Germanic *Walkhiskaz, from a Celtic tribal name represented by Latin Volcæ (Caesar) "ancient Celtic tribe in southern Gaul." As a noun, "the Britons," also "the Welsh language," both from Old English. The word survives in Wales, Cornwall, Walloon, walnut, and in surnames Walsh and Wallace. Borrowed in Old Church Slavonic as vlachu, and applied to the Rumanians, hence Wallachia. Among the English, Welsh was used disparagingly of inferior or substitute things (such as Welsh cricket "louse" (1590s); Welsh comb "thumb and four fingers" (1796), and compare welch (v.)). Welsh rabbit is from 1725, also perverted by folk-etymology as Welsh rarebit (1785).
Example
- 1. Some welsh plans may point the way forward .
- 2. Welsh tories grumble that breakfast is the responsibility of parents .
- 3. Welsh and scots too have lost faith in the larger identity .
- 4. One reason for this hesitation is the welsh government 's weak mandate .
- 5. Prices for welsh lamb have more than doubled over the past three years .