qualtagh

Meanings

1. The first person one encounters, either after leaving one's home or (sometimes) outside one's home, especially on New Year's Day; a first-foot.

Etymology

PIE word *ḱóm Borrowed from Manx qualtagh, quaaltagh (“first person one meets after leaving the house; first person one meets on New Year’s Day”, literally “one who meets or is met”), from quaail (“act of meeting; a meeting”) (ultimately from Old Irish comdál, from com- (prefix meaning ‘with’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm (“beside, by; near; with”)) + dál (“part, share; land in which a tribe lives”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂- (“to divide; to share”))) + -agh (suffix forming adjectives and nouns expressing belonging, a connection to, having, or an involvement with). The interfix -t- may be modelled after an unattested form of Old Irish comaltae (“foster-brother; companion”).