What is the Irish Gaelic word for wolf?

One Answer:

Mactíre (son of the land) and madra allta (wild dog) are the current terms, but the Irish Gaelic for "wolf-hound" is cú faoil. Faol is an old word for "wolf" and is found in the surname Ó Faoláin (Phelan, Whalen). The following answer/mini-lesson is Scottish Gaelic not Irish.

Another Answer:

I am no expert on Gaelic, but I happened across this, and thought it might be useful.

http://www.geocities.com/dan_tender_blur/gaellesson3.html

Sometimes a noun can have more than one adjective following it. But there is a rule on which adjective must come first or last. Generally, adjectives that denote size usually come first before other adjectives:

faol mhòr mhath - a big good wolf leabhar beag dearg - a small red book

When using the verb tha with a noun and an adjective, it can be quite confusing to read the sentence at first because the verb has to come first and so it doesn't "separate" the noun already with an adjective FROM another adjective. For example, if you want to say 'The big wolf is good.', you must say Tha an fhaol mhòr math. Notice the word math, it is not lenited even though faol is a feminine noun. Why is this? Because math is the predicate (something which describes what the noun is). Mhòr is lenited because it is the attribute - we already know that the wolf is big because of the attribute but what if we want to know MORE about the big wolf? You could ask the question Am bheil an fhaol mhòr math? (Is the big wolf good?) and the answer would be either Tha, tha an fhaol mhòr math. or Chan eil, chan eil an fhaol mhòr math. We want to know whether the wolf is good or not. This works in the same way Am bheil e math? (translated idiomatically into English as 'Is it good?' since the wolf in Gaelic is considered as feminine but because math is the predicate it doesn't lenite). If it DOES lenite however, then the translation would be 'The big good wolf.' Consider the following phrases very carefully and you will understand how it works:

GAELIC ENGLISH
Faol MHÒR. A BIG wolf.
An fhaol MHÒR. The BIG wolf.
Tha faol MÒR. A wolf is BIG.
Tha an fhaol MÒR. The wolf is BIG.
Am bheil an fhaol MÒR? Is the wolf BIG?

GAELIC ENGLISH
Faol MHÒR mhath. A BIG good wolf.
An fhaol MHÒR mhath. The BIG good wolf.
Tha faol MHÒR math. A BIG wolf is good.
Tha an fhaol MHÒR math. The BIG wolf is good.
Am bheil an fhaol MHÒR math? Is the BIG wolf good?

The underlined word is the attribute and the italicised word is the predicate.

First answer by Erisraven. Last edit by Fearganainm. Contributor trust: 59 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 4 [recommend question]