gaol - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

The old Melbourne gaol

From Middle English gayole, gaiol, gaylle, gaille, gayle, gaile, via Old French gaiole, gayolle, gaole, from Medieval Latin gabiola, for Late Latin caveola, a diminutive of Latin cavea (“cavity, coop, cage”). See also cage.

gaol (countable and uncountable, plural gaols)

  1. (British) Dated spelling of jail.
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, “Miss Thyrza’s Chair”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 42:
      There's every Staffordshire crime-piece ever made in this cabinet, and that's unique. The Van Hoyer Museum in New York hasn't that very rare second version of Maria Marten's Red Barn over there, nor the little Frederick George Manning – he was the criminal Dickens saw hanged on the roof of the gaol in Horsemonger Lane, by the way —

gaol (third-person singular simple present gaols, present participle gaoling, simple past and past participle gaoled)

  1. (British) Dated spelling of jail.

In British English, gaol was the more commonly published spelling between approximately 1730 and 1960,[1] and it is still preferred in proper names in some regions. Most Australian newspapers use jail, citing either narrower print widths or the risk of transposing the letters in gaol to produce goal.[2] In Canada, the most common spelling by far is jail, although a handful of legal writers still use gaol; see, for example, [1], para. 26.

The revised 10th edition of the Oxford Authors' and Printers' Dictionary (1965) cites jail, /-er as preferred. So, too, does the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors (2005), "excepting usage in historical contexts".

  1. ^ Google Books Ngram Viewer
  2. ^ 1996, Sally A. White, Reporting in Australia, page 275

From Middle Irish gáel (“relationship”), from Proto-Celtic *gailos (compare Lithuanian gailùs (“compassionate”), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌹𐌻𐌾𐌰𐌽 (gailjan, “gladden”), German geil (“wanton”)).

gaol m (genitive singular gaoil, nominative plural gaolta)

  1. relationship, kinship; kindred feeling
  2. relation, kin; relative
  3. relation between things, connection

Mutated forms of gaol

radical lenition eclipsis
gaol ghaol ngaol

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

  1. ^ Sjoestedt, M. L. (1931), Phonétique d’un parler irlandais de Kerry [Phonetics of an Irish dialect of Kerry] (in French), Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux, page 56

From Middle Irish gáel (“relationship”). Cognate with Irish gaol.

gaol m (genitive singular gaoil, plural gaoil)

  1. love, affection
    Tha gaol agam ort. ― I love you. (literally, “is love at me on you”)
    Ghabh i trom ghaol air. ― She fell madly in love with him.
  2. love (object of love)
    • “Gaol ise Gaol i [My love is she]”‎[2]:
      Gaol ise gaol i.
      She is my love.
      (literally, “Love she love her.”)

Mutation of gaol

radical lenition
gaol ghaol

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Scottish Gaelic.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

  1. ^ Oftedal, M. (1956), A linguistic survey of the Gaelic dialects of Scotland, Vol. III: The Gaelic of Leurbost, Isle of Lewis, Oslo: Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap, page 81

gaol

  1. banana