Erse

American  

[urs] / ɜrs /

noun

1. Gaelic, especially Scottish Gaelic.

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adjective

1. of or relating to Gaelic, especially Scottish Gaelic.

Erse British  

/ ɜːs /

noun

1. another name for Irish Gaelic

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adjective

1. of or relating to the Irish Gaelic language

Etymology

Origin of Erse

C14: from Lowland Scots Erisch Irish; Irish being regarded as the literary form of Gaelic

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Erse

Compounded of puns, disjointed syllables, half-words, it is closest to English, but Erse, Latin, Greek, Dutch, French, Sanskrit, even Esperanto appear, usually distorted to suggest both an alien and an English notion.

From Time Magazine Archive

How Mr. Macpherson has been able to translate the Erse used in the time of Ossian, who lived a whole century at least before the earliest British Bard now extant, I cannot comprehend. 

From Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Ancient Welsh Bards by Evans, Evan

Irish fairies talk Erse, and Welsh fairies sing in Welsh.

From A Fortunate Term by Brazil, Angela

At present the languages derived from that of the Goidels are the Gaelic of the Highlands, the Manx of the Isle of Man, and the Erse of Ireland.

From A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII by Gardiner, Samuel Rawson

I was to have a gown and petticoat of the mistress’s; so they turned out her whole wardrobe upon the parlour floor, talking Erse to one another, and laughing all the time. 

From Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 by Shairp, John Campbell