Everyday life

banshee

A banshee is an Irish bean sí, a 'woman of the fairy mound' whose wailing foretells a death in the family; Scottish Gaelic has the bean-sìth too. English borrowed the word in the 1770s, and fantasy games have since taken it to Japan.

Weakest linkCertain

The road to English

From Old Irish to Scottish Gaelic

From English to Japanese

800 CEOld Irish

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

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