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Tha sinn a’ toirt sùil air faclan às an fhaclair aig Raibeart Armstrong. Tha sinn aig an litir ‘n’. Agus seo agaibh am facal a thagh mi – nigheachan. Tha e stèidhichte air nigh ‘wash, bathe, cleanse’. Tha nigheachan a’ ciallachadh ‘a washing of linen’. Tha Armstrong a’ toirt seo dhuinn: bean nigheachain ‘a laundress’ agus taigh nigheachain ‘a washing-house or laundry’.

ʼS e an ath fhacal osna ‘sigh, sob, groan, breeze, blast’. Leig i osna ‘she sighed’. Tha osnach agus osnachail a’ ciallachadh ‘sighing, sobbing’. Tha an gnìomhair osnaich ann. Bha mi ag osnaich leam fhèin ‘I was sighing in solitude’.

Tha sinn a-nise aig ‘p’. Thagh mi am facal pailleart ‘a slap given with the palm of the hand’. Tha am buadhair pailleartach ann – ‘ready to slap with the hand’ – agus an gnìomhair pailleartaich ‘slap with the hand’.Ìý

Fo ‘r’, tha am facal °ùè¾±³Ù±ð againn. Saoilidh mi gu bheil am facal cudromach anns an latha sa bheil sinn beò. Tha e a’ ciallachadh ‘reconciliation, agreement, settlement’. Tha sinn feumach air tuilleadh °ùè¾±³Ù±ðachairean anns an t-saoghal.

Chan eil air fhàgail againn anns an aibidil Ghàidhlig a-nise ach trì litrichean. Fo ‘s’, bu mhath leam sùil a thoirt air an fhacal ²õì´Ç°ù. Tha e a’ ciallachadh ‘ever, forever, continually, eternally’. Tha Armstrong ag innse dhuinn [that] ²õì´Ç°ù ‘is often prefixed to a word to denote continuance or perpetuity’.

Seo eisimpleirean dheth on fhaclair: ²õì´Ç°ù atharrachadh ‘continual fluctuation or shifting’. ³§Ã¬´Ç°ù-²ú³ó³Ü²¹±ô²¹»å³ó – ‘a continued striking, constant thumping’. Chuala mi ²õì´Ç°ù-bhualadh nan drumaichean. Agus tha ²õì´Ç°ù-bhuan ann – ‘everlasting, eternal’. ʼS e tinneas ²õì´Ç°ù-bhuan a tha ann ‘it’s a chronic illness’.

Agus ²õì´Ç°ù-uisgeach. Saoil dè tha sin a’ ciallachadh? ³§Ã¬´Ç°ù-³Ü¾±²õ²µ±ð²¹³¦³ó. Uill, bidh am facal feumail ann an Alba aig amannan. ³§Ã¬´Ç°ù-³Ü¾±²õ²µ±ð²¹³¦³ó – ‘raining continually’!

Tha sinn a-nise aig ‘t’ agus am facal tearc. Tha e a’ ciallachadh ‘few, rare, scarce’. Mar eisimpleir, ʼs ann tearc a tha na h-èisg-mhara an-diugh.

Mu dheireadh am facal utag ‘a shove, a push, a jostle’. Cuideachd ‘strife, confusion, uproar’. Cha toigh le duine againn a bhith ann an àite utagach. ʼS fheàrr leam fhìn sìth an fhaclair Ghàidhlig!

We are taking a look at words from Robert Armstrong’s dictionary. We are at the letter ‘n’. And here is the word I chose – nigheachan. It’s based on nigh ‘wash, bathe, cleanse’. Nigheachan means ‘a washing of linen’. Armstrong gives us this: bean nigheachain ‘a laundress’ and taigh nigheachain ‘a washing-house or laundry’.

The next word is osna ‘sigh, sob, groan, breeze, blast’. Leig i osna ‘she sighed’. Osnach and osnachail mean  ‘sighing, sobbing’. There is the verb osnaich. Bha mi ag osnaich leam fhèin ‘I was sighing in solitude’.

We are now at ‘p’. I chose the word pailleart ‘a slap given with the palm of the hand’. There is the adjective pailleartach – ‘ready to slap with the hand’ – and the verb pailleartaich ‘slap with the hand’.

Under ‘r’, we have the word °ùè¾±³Ù±ð. I reckon that the word is important at the current time. It means ‘reconciliation, agreement, settlement’. We need more °ùè¾±³Ù±ðachairean ‘conciliators’ in the world.

We only have three letters left in the Gaelic alphabet now. Under ‘s’, I’d like to look at the word ²õì´Ç°ù. It means ‘ever, forever, continually, eternally’. Armstrong tells us [that] ²õì´Ç°ù ‘is often prefixed to a word to denote continuance or perpetuity’.

Here are examples of it from the dictionary: ²õì´Ç°ù atharrachadh ‘continual fluctuation or shifting’. ³§Ã¬´Ç°ù-²ú³ó³Ü²¹±ô²¹»å³ó – ‘a continued striking, constant thumping’. I  heard the constant banging of the drums. And there is ²õì´Ç°ù-bhuan – ‘everlasting, eternal’. ʼS e tinneas ²õì´Ç°ù-bhuan a tha ann ‘it’s a chronic illness’.

And ²õì´Ç°ù-uisgeach. What does that mean? ³§Ã¬´Ç°ù-³Ü¾±²õ²µ±ð²¹³¦³ó. Well, the word is useful in Scotland at times. ³§Ã¬´Ç°ù-³Ü¾±²õ²µ±ð²¹³¦³ó – ‘raining continually’!

We are now at ‘t’ and the word tearc. It means ‘few, rare, scarce’. For example, ‘[the] marine fish are scarce today.’

Finally, the word utag ‘a shove, a push, a jostle’. Also ‘strife, confusion, uproar’. None of us like to be in a place that is full of uproar. I myself prefer the peace and happiness of the Gaelic dictionary!