frith-

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See also: frith, Frith, fríth, frìth, and friþ

Irish

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old Irish frith- (counter-, beside, against), from the verbal nouns of Old Irish verbs like fris·beir, fris·aicci, fris·indlea with the initial preverb fri, from Proto-Celtic *writ- (compare Welsh wrth, prefix gwrth-), from the zero grade of Proto-Indo-European *wert- (to turn) (compare Latin versus (against)).

Prefix

frith-

  1. anti-, counter-
    Synonym: anta-
  2. back
    Synonym: cúl-

Derived terms

Mutation

Irish mutation
Radical Lenition Eclipsis
frith- fhrith- bhfrith-
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

Old Irish

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *writ- (compare Welsh wrth, prefix gwrth-), from the zero grade of Proto-Indo-European *wert- (to turn) (compare Latin versus (against)).

Pronunciation

Prefix

frith- (pretonic fris-)

  1. counter-, beside, against

Usage notes

There are three basic shapes of the prefix, used in the following manner:

  • Frith- proper manifests as such before morpheme-initial vowels.
    frith- (beside) + ‎aire (watching) → ‎frithaire (vigil, literally watching beside)
    frith- + ‎orcun (striking down) → ‎frithorcun (injury)
  • Fris- and fres- tend to appear before resonants. Originally fres- was created by a following vowel lowering the vowel in older fris-, but by Old Irish times the two variants were interchangeable.
  • Fre- and fri- were used before stops. Like with fris- and fres-, the distribution of these two variants originally depended on whether the following morpheme caused its original -i- to lower to -e-, but by the Old Irish period this distribution was not strictly followed. It triggered no mutation of the next morpheme in line.
    frith- (beside) + ‎cor (putting) → ‎frecor (cultivation, worship)
    frith- (against) + ‎tuidecht (coming) → ‎frituidecht (opposition, literally coming against)

Later on, the non-frith- forms became fossilized as frith- overtook the other shapes in productivity. Frith- also caused lenition of the initial consonant of a following morpheme as this happened. For instance, frith- + ‎gním (work) → ‎frithgnam (pains, labour, work).

Derived terms

Descendants

  • Middle Irish: frith-

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From frith.

Prefix

frith-

  1. by-, sub-
  2. counter-

Derived terms

Mutation

Scottish Gaelic mutation
Radical Lenition
frith fhrith
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.