lobur

Old Irish

Etymology

Cognate to Welsh llwfr (“cowardly”) and Middle Breton loffr (whence Breton lovr). Stifter believes that the word is a native word from Proto-Celtic *lubros, from Proto-Indo-European *lewp- (“to peel, strip”), cognate with Ancient Greek λυπρός (luprós, “distressing, wretched”). The word later came to be associated with Latin lepra (“leprosy”) and developed the sense “leper”, but the two words are etymologically unrelated.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈl͈oβur]

Adjective

lobur (comparative lobru)

1. feeble
   • c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 4^a27

     I⟨s⟩ samlid trá is lobur ar n-irnigde-ni, mat réte frecndirci gesme, et nín·fortéit-ni in spirut oc suidiu.

     Thus then our way of praying is feeble if present things are what we ask for, and the spirit does not help us with this.

Declension

o/ā-stem
Singular	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nominative	lobur	lobur	lobur
Vocative	lobur
Accusative	lobur	lobur
Genitive	lobur	lobrae	lobur
Dative	lobur	lobur	lobur
Plural	Masculine	Feminine/neuter
Nominative	lobur	lobra
Vocative	lobru lobra†
Accusative	lobru lobra†
Genitive	lobur
Dative	lobraib
Notes	† not when substantivized

Descendants

• Middle Irish: lobar
  • Irish: lobhar
  • Scottish Gaelic: lobhar
  • ⇒ Manx: lourane

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
lobur also llobur after a proclitic	lobur pronounced with /l(ʲ)-/	unchanged
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “lobur, lobor”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language