Hibernicism

[ hahy-bur-nuh-siz-uhm ]

noun

1. an idiom or characteristic peculiar to Irish English or to the Irish.

Hibernicism

/ haɪˈbɜːnɪˌsɪzəm; haɪˈbɜːnɪəˌnɪzəm /

noun

1. an Irish expression, idiom, trait, custom, etc

Word History and Origins

Origin of Hibernicism¹

1750–60; < Medieval Latin Hibernic ( us ) Hibernian ( Hibern ( ia ) Hibernia + -icus -ic ) + -ism

Example Sentences

Then came the dash of cold water: “Were financial and world conditions more favorable, there would be a strong probability that the Rockefeller Foundation would . . . view it as an opportunity which justified support even up to the whole of the capital costs. “But the joker—and a very serious joker it is, if you will permit the Hibernicism—lies in the phrase ‘were financial and world conditions more favorable.’

From Literature

We simply glided aloft as if the sky were our native heath—you will pardon the Hibernicism—and as if determined to pay a visit to the round blazing sun bathing naked in the brilliant blue.

From Project Gutenberg

It is perhaps worthy of note that in that triumph of psychologic insight Barry Lyndon, which also is written in the first person, we find like for as, much as though it were a Hibernicism, which we do not understand it to be.

From Project Gutenberg

A blunder made in Great Britain is to be stigmatized as a Briticism, and it is to be avoided by those who take thought of their speech just as though the impropriety were a Scotticism or a Hibernicism, an Americanism or an Australianism.

From Project Gutenberg

The night bade fair to be a foul one—to use a hibernicism—and none of us coveted the post of the picket in those black woods in front of us.

From Project Gutenberg