Word of the day – ariandy

By Simon

I came across today’s word, ariandy, while looking for something else in one of my Welsh dictionaries, Y Geiriadur Mawr. It combines arian, silver / money, with dy, a mutated form of tŷ, house, and is an archaic word for bank, as in a place where money is kept. The normal word for bank is the loanword banc.

Another example of a word made up of native roots being replaced by a foreign loanword is cornmwg, chimney, from corn, horn and mwg smoke – the usual word for chimney is simnai.

6 thoughts on “Word of the day – ariandy”

  1. Interesting.

    In Gaelic, ‘airgead’ is silver/money. (From the Greek aurgurion if my memory serves me correctly). And ‘taigh’ is house.

    We use the loanword ‘banca’.

  2. there’s a lot of this in Welsh; bwyty (bwyd – food + ty – house = restaurant) which is used and llythyrdy (llythyr – letter + mutation of ty = post office) which isn’t used much.

    It’s partly an affiramation that Welsh is a language which can adapt to new ideas + we always get the ‘what’s the Welsh word for entrepreneur?’ type question – yes, people do ask that and what’s the Welsh for ambulance/restaurant/bungalo as if all these words are English.

    It seems when English use foreign words it shows the superior ability of English to absorb new words and not be narrow-minded. When Welsh does the same thing it’s implied that Welsh is not able to accomodate modern ideas.

    Apparently the Welsh word for committee, pwyllgor, was invented by Iolo Morganwg in the early C19th and means pwyll – patience/care and cor – choir = ‘patience choir’. Surprisingly, this is used as well as comiti.

  3. In Gaelic we use ‘taigh-bidhe’, literally ‘house of food’ (which I’d imagine sounds very similar to bwyty, albeit in inverted form) for restaurant.

  4. There is also modurdy in Welsh for garage (the commercial enterprise rather than the little house next to your house for your own car, which is garej in Welsh).

    Modurdy is made up of modur (motor) and ty, as above.

  5. Another one is daeardy, dungeon (earth house), which is also dwmsiwn. Also ffermdy, farm house, and arfdy, armoury (arm/weapon house), and ystordy, store room/house.

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