Ogham

See also: ogham

English

Alternative forms

• ogham, ogam

Etymology

Borrowed from Irish ogham, from Middle Irish ogam, from Proto-Celtic *ogmos (“furrow, path”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂óǵmos.

The Irish word is frequently folk-etymologized as og-úaim, referring to ogham being supposedly made by the point of a sharp weapon, but this approach faces serious phonological and morphological problems in that:

• The name of ogham and the supposed second element (úaimm (“seam”)?) inflected very differently in Early Irish, "ogham" being an o-stem and the second element being a neuter n-stem.
• Middle Irish ogmóir (“skilled in ogham”) should have a vowel in between the g and m because vowels lengthened by compensatory lengthening after consonant loss are usually not syncopated in Early Irish.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈoʊ.əm/
• IPA^(key): (see the usage notes) /ˈɒɡəm/
• Rhymes: -oʊəm

Proper noun

Ogham

1. An ancient Celtic alphabet historically used to write Primitive Irish.
   • 2024 May 8, Dalya Alberge, “Teacher finds stone with ancient ogham writing from Ireland in Coventry garden”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     The rectangular sandstone rock that Graham Senior had discovered was inscribed in ogham, an alphabet used in the early medieval period primarily for writing in the Irish language.

Usage notes

The pronunciation /ˈoʊ.əm/ more closely matches the modern Irish pronunciation of the word ([ˈoːmˠ], [ˈoːəmˠ]), but the pronunciation /ˈɒɡəm/, based on the spelling and the Old Irish pronunciation, is also common in English.

Derived terms

• oghamic

Noun

Ogham (plural Oghams)

1. A single character in this alphabet.

See also

• beth luis nion, beth luis fern

Anagrams

• Omagh, go HAM, go ham