English
Fenian
Fenian comes from Old Irish Féni ‘originally the legendary people who inhabited…’.
- Old Irishc. 600–900Féni‘originally the legendary people who inhabited Ireland’
- Englishearliest quotation 1816Fenian
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Old Irishc. 600–900Féni‘originally the legendary people who inhabited Ireland’
- Englishearliest quotation 1816Fenian
Earliest quotation: 1816, Walter Scott, Hurst: “Do you compare your psalms / To the tales…”
The story
+ English -ian (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘from; related to’; and forming nouns with the sense ‘one from or related to’). The adjective is attested slightly earlier than the noun.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- ‘to bring’
way, always, vehicle, via, wave, reveal, halfway, vector, weigh, wagon, wee, vein, vogue, veil, wedge, headway, wag, vex, wonky, eunuch, venous, wey, invective, waw, wain, velar, vena, 40 more
Today it means
adj Of or relating to roving bands of hunter-warriors in ancient Ireland, especially the band led by the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill in Irish mythology; (generally) of or relating to the people of ancient Ireland.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Old Irish Féni / Fenian