Fenian

Meanings

1. Of or relating to roving bands of hunter-warriors in ancient Ireland, especially the band led by the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill in Irish mythology; (generally) of or relating to the people of ancient Ireland.
2. Of or relating to organizations opposing British rule in Ireland, especially the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood which were active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
3. Of or relating to a Roman Catholic, chiefly one of Irish descent or ethnicity.
4. Of or relating to the Scottish association football club Celtic Football Club.

1. A member of a roving band of hunter-warriors in ancient Ireland, especially the band led by the hero Fionn mac Cumhaill in Irish mythology; (generally) a person of ancient Ireland.
2. A member of an organization opposing British rule in Ireland, especially the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood which were active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; (generally) an Irish nationalist or republican.
3. A Roman Catholic person, chiefly one of Irish descent or ethnicity.
4. A supporter of the Scottish association football club Celtic Football Club.

Etymology

Partly from both of the following: * from Old Irish Féni (“originally the legendary people who inhabited Ireland; later the Irish people generally, especially those belonging to the social class of free citizens”, plural); further etymology uncertain, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to bring; to transport”) (whence wagon and wain; referring to the use of chariots); and * from Irish fian, fiann (“roving band of (legendary) warrior-hunters”) (generally a view taken by English-speaking scholars, possibly due to the similarity between Old Irish Féni and Irish féine, féinne, the genitive singular forms of fian and fiann), from Old Irish fían, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weyh₁- (“to chase, pursue”); + English -ian (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘from; related to’; and forming nouns with the sense ‘one from or related to’). The adjective is attested slightly earlier than the noun.