A.W.A.D. - Words Borrowed from Irish

On June 16, James Joyce aficionados the world over celebrate Bloomsday. The day is named after advertising salesman Leopold Bloom, protagonist of Joyce's novel Ulysses. The entirety of this book recounts an ordinary day, June 16, 1904, as various characters go about their ways in Dublin, Ireland. If those 700+ pages are too much, here's an illustrated and irreverent summary of the book: http://home.bway.net/hunger/ulysses.html

To mark Bloomsday this week we'll examine five words borrowed from the Irish language.

shebeen
(shuh-BEEN) noun
An unlicensed drinking establishment

[From Irish sibin, diminutive of seibe (mug/mugful). The word is popular in the south of Africa and in Scotland and Ireland.]

dornick
(DOR-nik) noun
1. A piece of rock small enough to throw

[From Irish dornog (small stone, literally fistful).]

2. Stout linen.

[After Doornik, the name of a Flemish town where the cloth was first manufactured.]

hubbub
(HUB-ub) noun
Excited fuss or tumult of a crowd

[Perhaps from Irish ubub (an interjection of contempt).]

cosher (KOSH-uhr) verb tr. To pamper.

[From Irish cosair (feast).]

smithereens
(smith-uh-REENZ) noun
Tiny fragments

[Probably from Irish smidirin, diminutive of smiodar (fragment).]

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