Meanings
ogham1
- alternativeAlternative form of Ogham.
Ogham2
alternative ogham · alternative ogam
- The Ogham alphabet, a writing system used to write Irish first attested inscribed on the edge of standing stones from the 4th century AD, with continuous use thereafter.
The rectangular sandstone rock that Graham Senior had discovered was inscribed in ogham, an alphabet used in the early medieval period primarily for writing in the Irish language.
2024 May 8, Dalya Alberge, “Teacher finds stone with ancient ogham writing from Ireland in Coventry garden”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*h₂óǵmos
- Proto-Celtic*ogmos“furrow, path”
- Middle Irishogam
- Irishogham
- EnglishOgham
Borrowed from Irish ogham, from Middle Irish ogam, from Proto-Celtic *ogmos (“furrow, path”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂óǵmos. The Irish word is frequently folk-etymologized as og-úaim, referring to ogham being supposedly made by the point of a sharp weapon, but this approach faces serious phonological and morphological problems in that: * The name of ogham and the supposed second element (úaimm (“seam”)?) inflected very differently in Early Irish, "ogham" being an o-stem and the second element being a neuter n-stem. * Middle Irish ogmóir (“skilled in ogham”) should have a vowel in between the g and m because vowels lengthened by compensatory lengthening after consonant loss are usually not syncopated in Early Irish.
More words from Irish, Middle Irish, Proto-Celtic
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
ogham. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ogham
“ogham.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ogham. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ogham,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ogham.
Source: ogham on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.