immdíben

Old Irish

Etymology

From imm- (“circum-”) +‎ dí- (“de-”) +‎ benaid (“to strike”), in imitation of Latin circumcidō.

Verb

imm·díben (verbal noun imdibe)

1. to excise
   • c. 845, St Gall Glosses on Priscian, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1975, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, pp. 49–224, Sg. 143^b4

     im·dibenar ― glossing Latin absciditur (“it is excised”)

   • c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 15^b9

     imdibnem ― glosses Latin abdicamus (“let us condemn”), which the glossator mixed up with abcidamus (“let us cut off”)

2. to circumcise
   • c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 18^d9

     […] aris Tiamthe imme·ruidbed et niro·imdibed Tit.

     for it is Timothy who had been circumcised and Titus had not been circumcised.

Inflection

Mutation

Further reading

• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “imm-díben”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language