List of English words of Welsh origin

This is a list of English language words of Welsh language origin. As with the Goidelic languages, the Brythonic tongues are close enough for possible derivations from Cumbric, Cornish or Breton in some cases.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Beyond the loan of common nouns, there are numerous English toponyms, surnames, personal names or nicknames derived from Welsh (see Celtic toponymy, Celtic onomastics).[1]

Words that derive from Welsh
Welsh Corgi
avon
from Welsh afon; Cornish avon
bara brith
speckled bread in Welsh. Traditional Welsh bread flavoured with tea, dried fruits and mixed spices.
bard
from Old Celtic bardos, either through Welsh bardd (where the bard was highly respected) or Scottish bardis (where it was a term of contempt); Cornish bardh
cawl
a traditional Welsh soup/stew; Cornish kowl
cist
(archaeological) a stone lined coffin
coracle
from corwgl. But this Welsh term was derived from the Latin corium meaning "leather or hide", the material from which coracles are made. [2]
corgi
from cor, "dwarf" + gi (soft mutation of ci), "dog".
crag
from an Insular Celtic source, perhaps from Welsh craig'or 'Carreg.;[3][4] Cornish karrek
cromlech
from crom llech literally "crooked flat stone"
crwth
"a bowed lyre"
cwm
from cwm "coomb." Cornish; komm; passed into Old English as 'cumb'
eisteddfod
from Welsh, lit. "session," from eistedd "to sit" (from sedd "seat," cognate with L. sedere; see sedentary) + bod "to be" (cognate with O.E. beon; see be).[5]
flannel
the Oxford English Dictionary says the etymology is "uncertain", but Welsh gwlanen = "flannel wool" is likely. An alternative source is Old French flaine, "blanket". The word has been adopted in most European languages. An earlier English form was flannen, which supports the Welsh etymology. Shakspeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor contains the term "the Welsh flannel".[3][4]
flummery
from llymru[3][4]
hiraeth
homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire.
kistvaen
from cist (chest) and maen (stone).
lech
from llech.[6]
pikelet
a type of small, thick pancake. Derived from the Welsh bara pyglyd, meaning "pitchy [i.e. dark or sticky] bread", later shortened simply to pyglyd;[7][8] The early 17th century lexicographer, Randle Cotgrave, spoke of "our Welsh barrapycleds".[9][10] The word spread initially to the West Midlands of England,[11] where it was anglicised to picklets and then to pikelets.[10] The first recognisable crumpet-type recipe was for picklets, published in 1769 by Elizabeth Raffald in The Experienced English Housekeeper.[12]
tref
meaning “hamlet, home, town.”;[13] Cornish tre.
wrasse
a kind of sea fish (derived via Cornish wrach, Welsh gwrach (meaning hag or witch)).[14]

Old Welsh origins for the topographical terms Tor (OW tŵr) and crag (OW carreg or craig) are among a number of available Celtic derivations for the Old English antecedents to the modern terms. However, the existence of similar cognates in both the Goidelic, Latin, Old French and the other Brythonic families makes isolation of a precise origin difficult, such as for example, the adoption of the word Cross from Latin Crux, Old Irish cros, OE Rood ; appearing in Welsh and Cornish as Croes, Krows.

adder
The Proto-Indo-European root netr- led to Latin natrix, Welsh neidr, Cornish nader, Breton naer, West Germanic nædro, Old Norse naðra, Middle Dutch nadre, any of which may have led to the English word.
bow
May be from Old English bugan "to bend, to bow down, to bend the body in condescension," also "to turn back", or more simply from the Welsh word bwa
coombe
meaning "valley", is usually linked with the Welsh cwm, also meaning "valley", Cornish and Breton komm. However, the OED traces both words back to an earlier Celtic word, *kumbos. It suggests a direct Old English derivation for "coombe".
(Coumba, or coumbo, is the common western-alpine vernacular word for "glen", and considered genuine gaulish (celtic-ligurian branch). Found in many toponyms of the western Alps like Coumboscuro (Grana valley), Bellecombe and Coumbafréide (Aoste), Combette (Suse), Coumbal dou Moulin (Valdensian valleys). Although seldom used, the word "combe" is included into major standard-french dictionaries. This could justify the celtic origin thesis).
crockery
It has been suggested that crockery might derive from the Welsh crochan, as well as the Manx crocan and Gaelic crogan, meaning "pot". The OED states that this view is "undetermined". It suggests that the word derives from Old English croc, via the Icelandic krukka, meaning "an earthenware pot or pitcher".
crumpet
Welsh crempog, cramwyth, Cornish krampoeth or Breton Krampouezh; 'little hearth cakes'
druid
From the Old Celtic derwijes/derwos ("true knowledge" or literally "they who know the oak") from which the modern Welsh word derwydd evolved, but travelled to English through Latin (druidae) and French (druide)
gull
from either Welsh or Cornish;[15] Welsh gwylan, Cornish guilan, Breton goelann; all from O.Celt. *voilenno- "gull" (OE mæw)
hog
Cornish Hogh (and hedgehog)
iron
or at least the modern form of the word "iron" (c/f Old English ísern, proto-Germanic *isarno, itself borrowed from proto-Celtic), appears to have been influenced by pre-existing Celtic forms in the British Isles: Old Welsh hearn, Cornish hoern, Breton houarn, Old Gaelic íarn (Irish iaran, iarun, Scottish iarunn)[16]
lawn
from Welsh Llan Cornish Lan (cf. Launceston, Breton Lann); Heath; enclosed area of land, grass about a Christian site of worship from Cornish Lan (e.g. Lanteglos, occasionally Laun as in Launceston) or Welsh Llan (e.g. Llandewi)[17]
penguin
possibly from pen gwyn, "white head". "The fact that the penguin has a black head is no serious objection."[3][4] It may also be derived from the Breton language, or the Cornish Language, which are all closely related. However, dictionaries suggest the derivation is from Welsh pen "head" and gwyn "white", including the Oxford English Dictionary,[18] the American Heritage Dictionary,[19] the Century Dictionary[20] and Merriam-Webster,[21] on the basis that the name was originally applied to the great auk, which had white spots in front of its eyes (although its head was black). Pen gwyn is identical in Cornish and in Breton. An alternative etymology links the word to Latin pinguis, which means "fat". In Dutch, the alternative word for penguin is "fat-goose" (vetgans see: Dutch wiki or dictionaries under Pinguïn), and would indicate this bird received its name from its appearance.
tor
meaning hill or mountain, possibly via Latin turris (tower) such as Glastonbury Tor, is particularly prevalent in Devon.[22]:Mither
An English word possibly from the Welsh word "moedro" meaning to bother or pester someone. Possible links to the yorkshire variant "moither"

Welsh words used in English
Eisteddfod

English words lifted directly from Welsh, and used with original spelling (largely used either in Wales or with reference to Wales.):

  • afon (river)
  • awdl
  • bach (literally "small", a term of affection)
  • cromlech
  • cwm (a valley)
  • crwth (originally meaning "swelling" or "pregnant")
  • cwrw – Welsh ale or beer
  • cwtch (hug, cuddle) (also small cupboard or dog's kennel/bed)
  • cynghanedd
  • Eisteddfod
  • englyn
  • gorsedd
  • hiraeth (distant longing, homesickness)
  • hwyl
  • iechyd da (cheers, or literally "good health")
  • mochyn – pig
  • nant (stream)
  • sglod, sglods (Welsh plural = sglodion) – chips or "French fries", in fish-and-chip takeaways (Flintshire)
  • twp/dwp – idiotic, daft
  • Urdd Eisteddfod (in Welsh "Eisteddfod Yr Urdd"), the youth Eisteddfod
  • ych â fi – an expression of disgust

See also

References
  1. Max Förster Keltisches Wortgut im Englischen, 1921, cited by J.R.R. Tolkien, English and Welsh, 1955. "many 'English' surnames, ranging from the rarest to the most familiar, are linguistically derived from Welsh (or British), from place-names, patronymics, personal names, or nick-names; or are in part so derived, even when that origin is no longer obvious. Names such as Gough, Dewey, Yarnal, Merrick, Onions, or Vowles, to mention only a few."
  2. Online Etymology Dictionary
  3. Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English.
  4. Skeat, Walter W (1888), An Etymological Dictionary the English Language.
  5. Online Etymology Dictionary
  6. "Lech", Etymology online.
  7. Edwards, W. P. The Science of Bakery Products, Royal Society of Chemistry, 2007, p. 198
  8. Luard, E. European Peasant Cookery, Grub Street, 2004, p. 449
  9. The folk-speech of south Cheshire, English Dialect Society, 1887, p. 293
  10. Notes & Queries, 3rd. ser. VII (1865), 170
  11. Wilson, C. A. Food & drink in Britain, Barnes and Noble, 1974, p. 266
  12. Davidson, A. The Penguin Companion to Food, 2002, p. 277
  13. "Tref", Etymology online.
  14. "Wrasse", Etymology online.
  15. "Gull", Etymology online.
  16. "Iron", OED.
  17. "Lawn", Etymology online.
  18. Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed 2007-03-21
  19. American Heritage Dictionary at wordnik.com Archived 2014-10-16 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2010-01-25
  20. Century Dictionary at wordnik.com Archived 2014-10-16 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2010-01-25
  21. Merriam-Webster Accessed 2010-01-25
  22. "Tor", Etymology online.

Sources
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