Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Variant of galloglass.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A soldier or armed retainer of a chief in ancient Ireland, the Hebrides, or other Gaelic countries.
Wiktionary
- n. A mercenary warrior élite among Gaelic-Norse clans residing in the Western Isles of Scotland and Scottish Highlands from the mid 13th century to the end of the 16th century.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A heavy-armed foot soldier from Ireland and the Western Isles in the time of Edward �
Etymologies
- Irish gallóglaigh ("foreign soldiers"), from óglách ("soldier"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Trouble is, the enigmatic and gorgeous Luke turns out to be a gallowglass—a soulless faerie assassin.”
Debut Showcase: Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception by Maggie Stiefvater
“And Luke is a gallowglass -- a faerie assassin, who's been sent to make sure she sees nothing ever again.”
“Bonnaught and gallowglass, throng from each mountain pass.”
“He may have been seventy years of age, yet his face was knit as hard as a warrior's of thirty, and he stepped out as lissom and quick as his youngest gallowglass.”
“For at the first onset the great gallowglass, amazed to see his man yet living, and ashamed, perchance, of his foul stroke, missed his mark and tumbled in a heap upon his foeman's sword.”
“Am I to be told my duty by a raw-boned, ill-conditioned Irish gallowglass that I have fed at my table and spent half my life in making a gentleman of?”
“= The kern or cateran of the Highlands was a light-armed infantryman, as opposed to the heavy-armed "gallowglass.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gallowglass’.
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#faveword
Words chosen as favorites for the Twitter hashtag #faveword.
autumnal, grotto, chiaroscuro, sfumato, homunculus, zing, zest, effervescent, bewitch, avuncular, susurrus, Styrofoam and 205 more...
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Soldiers and Sailors
Types and nicknames.
point man, legionary, man-at-arms, trooper, janissary, marine, lobsterback, redcoat, blackcoat, guardsman, billman, foot soldier and 95 more...
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Words and phrases of Irish origin, or...
not necessarily eponyms, but might be
boycott, blarney, banshee, galore, keen, donnybrook, colleen, drumlin, phoney, clan, cairn, ceili and 122 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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the omnibus
preponderance, idioglossia, acumen, heteronym, flux, anacoluthon, metonymy, impetus, constellation, exegesis, revelatory, cloistered and 877 more...
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fbharjo's Words
jumelle, kef, kenspeckle, lautitious, essentic, pilpulistic, impavid, cicurant, clou, chrysostomic, miasma, teleology and 1625 more...
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hauntedtapedeck's Words
hinterland, palimpsest, palisade, thaumaturgy, sangfroid, frisson, crick, patchwork, susurration, disconsolate, septum, elbow and 119 more...
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sambearpoet's Words
perspicacious, callipygian, lithe, precocious, stalwart, loquacious, perky, sumptuous, pavillion, beefeater, lascivious, ventral and 50 more...
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G
gingerbread, gingham, galaxy, glimpse, glacier, gypsy, gazelle, gauze, glitter, gothic, geisha, gasp and 19 more...
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compound words
My favourites.
birdbath, gallowglass, lamplight, chokecherry, lightbox, riptide, softshoe, snowshed, bluebird, matchbox, sugarcane, nightcap and 64 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gallowglass.
moonlight Thank you. Oct 14, 2009
sionnach appears in "Macbeth": The merciless Macdonald...... from the western isles of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied.
Derived from the Gaelic "gall-oglach", meaning foreign soldier. One of Ruth Rendell's thrillers is called "Gallowglass" as well. Jan 30, 2007