Erse
[urs]
- Gaelic, especially Scottish Gaelic.
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- of or relating to Gaelic, especially Scottish Gaelic.
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Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for erse
Historical Examples
There is I think a kirk, in which only the Erse language is used.
A Journey to the Western Isles of ScotlandSamuel Johnson
A peculiar boat of the Orcades; also the Erse for a gurnard.
The Sailor's Word-BookWilliam Henry Smyth
The Manx or Erse term which denotes the swell or rolling of the sea after a storm.
The Sailor's Word-BookWilliam Henry Smyth
In the Manx and Erse, signifies a rock that can be seen before low-water.
The Sailor's Word-BookWilliam Henry Smyth
The trouble was, of course, that the Erse colony on Eire was a bust.
Attention Saint PatrickWilliam Fitzgerald Jenkins
Erse
- another name for Irish Gaelic
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- of or relating to the Irish Gaelic language
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Word Origin
C14: from Lowland Scots Erisch Irish; Irish being regarded as the literary form of Gaelic
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for erse
Erse
late 14c., early Scottish variant of Old English Irisc or Old Norse Irskr "Irish" (see Irish); applied by Lowland Scots to the Gaelic speech of the Highlanders (which originally is from Ireland); sense shifted 19c. from "Highlanders" to "Irish."
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper