Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An Irish or Scottish social gathering with traditional music, dancing, and storytelling.
Wiktionary
- n. An Irish or Scottish informal social gathering where traditional folk music is played, with dancing and story telling.
- n. Any such gathering in the Celtic diaspora.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an informal social gathering at which there is Scottish or Irish folk music and singing and folk dancing and story telling
Etymologies
- From Scottish Gaelic cèilidh, Irish céilidhe, from Old Irish céile ("companion"). (Wiktionary)
- Irish Gaelic céilidhe, from Old Irish célide, visit, from céle, companion; see kei-1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Thea Gilmore and the Solfest ceilidh, which is always a pleasure ...”
“The evening started with A Chuirm, what the Irish would probably call a ceilidh and we Welsh would call a noson lawen.”
“Being part of that community is knowing what a "ceilidh" is, knowing not only the history of Ireland but of our own people in this country, most of them descendants of starving millions who fled to this country to avoid death from hunger.”
“Sebastian had vied for some traditional aspects for their big event, like the ceilidh, the Scottish version of a square dance.”
The Huffington Post: Lauren Marks: Notes From A Scottish-Lebanese Wedding
“But here, the accordionist was shouting directions, and although kilts abounded on the dance floor, most of these participants had never heard of a ceilidh before they danced in this one.”
The Huffington Post: Lauren Marks: Notes From A Scottish-Lebanese Wedding
“And if you want any help on the dancing front, then try ceilidh folk dances.”
“In terms of infrastructure, there's not much here: a small grocer's and craftshop, a tea room and ceilidh hall, a doctor's surgery and a single-classroom primary school.”
The Guardian: Back to the land: from London to sheep farming on Eigg
“Our host and driver for the weekend, Colin, arrived back at the ceilidh hall at 5. 30am, as day broke.”
The Guardian: Weird and wonderful: Scotland's Away Game music festival
“There were two stages, at the ceilidh hall and a marquee, with bands appearing alternately in each and Johnny introducing virtually every band personally.”
The Guardian: Weird and wonderful: Scotland's Away Game music festival
“Coventry War Memorial ParkLammas Festival, Eastbourne, Saturday, SundayA festival procession, folk music, an open-air ceilidh and more.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ceilidh’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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What the H?
Words that I could probably spell correctly without having to look them up every single damn time were it not for an apparently extraneous and randomly placed h.
jodhpur, diarrhea, ankh, myrrh, hemorrhoids, baghdad, rhombus, rhythm, hemorrhage, sheikh, catarrh, maharajah and 21 more...
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•Unexpected Pronunciation, Now! with ...
Inspired to publicity by the conversation at segway. Thanks, pals!
boatswain, clapboard, waistcoat, victuals, forecastle, solder, colonel, ensign, worcestershire sauce, creatinine, coelacanth, banal and 79 more...
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Music of different spheres
klezmer, makossa, bagatelle, masque, coloratura, quadrille, schottische, boogie, fandango, acciaccatura, appoggiatura, schmaltz and 11 more...
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words that make me happy inside
amanuensis, inamorata, armigerous, yurt, fugacious, ephemeral, gambit, defenestration, orotund, toper, teuchter, apostasy and 90 more...
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Under The Kilt
Anything related to Scottish culture, cuisine, language, history and so on. Does not include Gaelic words unless acceptable (roughly speaking!) in a wider sense.
brae, machair, loch, burn, inverness, shieling, camanachd, shinty, diddy, bhoy, ghillie, brownie and 393 more...
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Awesome Words, Part 2: More Common
pilgrim, indubitably, incorrigible, bombastic, histrionics, depredation, perspicuity, discombobulate, peregrination, ambulatory, redux, fractious and 164 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (C)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
cacophony, cad, cajole, calamity, camomile, camphor, candlemas, candy apple, canopy, canticle, caparison, caravan and 304 more...
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C. S. Bird – Grandiloquent Dictionary
All the words from the Grandiloquent Dictionary.
946 of these 2700 words do not yield any results in six different dictionaries, hence many of them might be misspellings.
More in...abacinate, abcedarian, abderian, ablegate, abligurition, ablutophobia, abnormous, acarophobia, acathasia, accipitrine, accidia, accubitus and 2690 more...
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roseandivy's list
mooncalf, wonted, gibbet, artless, noontide, blithe, glitterati, vorpal, soporific, moxie, pilfer, betwixt and between and 263 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, C
cryptoxanthin, convent, calcar, chuckle, campanile, covet, complexion, campestral, chirography, counterscarp, caliginous, catabolism and 722 more...
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Amusing words
interesting words
bonce, furcate, tapioca, tillage, desalinate, garish, litmus, roadhog, azoic, haberdasher, imbroglio, polliwog and 802 more...
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Seven Letters of Joy
tertile, retinol, opacity, ceilidh, opaline, doughty, luddite, languor, buccula, sillage, delphic, surfeit and 32 more...
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Scottish Stuff
Words related to the land of my birth.
kilt, brae, loch, sporran, broth, bagpipes, skean dhu, glengarry bonnet, bahoochy, glaswegian, hogmanay, poke and 9 more...
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words I remember first encountering
fetlock, artefact, quandary, asyndeton, chiasmus, enjambement, vehemently, vituperative, decorum, sable, scansion, diapason and 75 more...
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hoppestere
dancing on waves - a mysterious term of Chaucer that I can't bury or even embalm.
mudra, orchesis, poussette, gestic, reel, coupee, riffle, hula, allemande, pavan, pantomime, geisha and 21 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ceilidh.
reesetee Ah, thank heavens for sionnach! I had a feeling those missing accents had something to do with all of this. :-) Jan 23, 2008
sionnach In Ireland, it's pronounced 'kay-lee', with roughly equal stress on both syllables. 'key-lee' just seems wrong.
There are two variations in the Gaelic spelling: in Munster (where I grew up), it's written as 'céilí'. 'Céilidh' is the preferred spelling in Northern Ireland (and, I'm guessing, in Scots Gaelic).
I don't think there is any particular confusion about how the word is accented - the presence of two accent marks in the first spelling makes it clear that both syllables should be stressed equally. The second accent is omitted in 'Céilidh' because the effect of adding the 'dh' is to lengthen the vowel, so the accent becomes superfluous.
Inclusion of 'storytelling' in the definition is a delusion of Weirdnet. Jan 23, 2008
asativum You say ceilidh,
I say ceilidh,
Let's call the whole thing off! Jan 23, 2008
seanahan Random House has "key-lee", but the rest have "kay-lee". Bartleby has an audio sample attached, and there is a more noticeable pause in between the two syllables than in daily. Jan 23, 2008
asativum Oh dear. Can't a nation of 300-million mainly English-speakers* agree on how to stress the syllables of a Gaelic word?
(edit): * Erm -- and their lovely and decidedly independent neighbors to the north, of course... Sorry! Excusez-moi! Jan 23, 2008
skipvia In western NC, where I first heard it, it's often pronounced with equal stress on both syllables: KAY-LEE. Jan 23, 2008
reesetee That's how I heard it pronounced in Nova Scotia, too: KAY-lee. Jan 23, 2008
asativum Thanks! Jan 23, 2008
sarra When I first learnt this word many years ago I imagined it was spelt cailey. /'keɪlɪ/, rhymes with daily. Jan 23, 2008
asativum Pronounced "hoo-ha," I hope. Because then I have a chance of saying it right. Jan 23, 2008