focul

Old Irish

Once thought to be a loanword from Latin vocābulum (“appellation, designation”), but more likely a native word from Proto-Celtic *woxtlom (compare Welsh gwaethl (“argument”)), from Proto-Indo-European *wokʷtlom (compare Sanskrit वक्त्र (vaktrá, “mouth”)).

Either way, derived from the root *wekʷ- (“to speak”).^[1]

The older theory was defended in the print edition of Matasović’s dictionary,^[2] but the online Addenda et Corrigenda reflect the newer theory.^[3]

focul n or m

Initial mutations of a following adjective:

Mutation of *focul*
radical	lenition	nasalization
focul	ḟocul	focul pronounced with /β̃-/

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in Old Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

^ Stüber, Karin (1998), The Historical Morphology of n-Stems in Celtic, Maynooth: Department of Old Irish, National University of Ireland, →ISBN, page 70.
^ Matasović, Ranko (2009), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 429
^ Matasović, Ranko (December 2011), “Addenda et corrigenda to Ranko Matasović’s Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Brill, Leiden 2009)”, in Homepage of Ranko Matasović‎^[1], Zagreb, page 43

focul