omadhaun

plural omadhauns · alternative amadan · alternative omadawn · alternative omathaun · alternative omedhaun · alternative ommadawn

1. IrelandA fool or simpleton; someone out of their senses.

   "No, you omadhaun. It bites your shoulder, rips it right off."

   1996, Frank McCourt, Angela's Ashes

   4 more examples

   "Av haith!" sez Tom, burstin' out laughin'. "Shure you don't take me to be sich an omedhaun as to b'lieve that?" "Do as ye plase," sez he, "but what I tell ye is the raal thruth."

   1850, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, London: H.G. Bohn, page 374

   […] an Omadhaun is a man who began life with some sense, but lost most of it on his journey.

   1906, Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson, A Story of Outback Life

   It is supposed—they say, you know—to take place in the depot where they get these thundering big country fellows, omadhauns, you know, to drill.

   1905 (date written), James Joyce, “Grace”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC, page 198

   Tin trumpets some of the omadhauns had brought along to bray with […]

   1983, Hugh Kenner, A Colder Eye