Word.ws English Dictionary

Celtic Tiger

Celtic Tiger proper noun: the economy of the Republic of Ireland from the mid-1990s to the late-2000s, a period of rapid real economic growth fuelled by foreign direct investment.

Proper noun (1)

the Celtic Tiger

  1. The economy of the Republic of Ireland from the mid-1990s to the late-2000s, a period of rapid real economic growth fuelled by foreign direct investment.
    • Even aside from the emergence of the “Celtic Tiger,” were the foundations of the Irish manifestation of the global financial crisis laid by deeper structural issues in the Irish economy […] and in Irish political culture[…]?2017, John Gibney, “Where Historians Disagree: An Epilogue”, in A Short History of Ireland, 1500–2000, New Haven: Yale University Press, →ISBN
    • Ireland shook off its reliance on the UK and became a Celtic tiger. While it might be a pity – and a sad comment on England – Scotland could do the same.2024 February 2, Simon Jenkins, “Northern Ireland will leave the union, and Scotland could too. True devolution is the only way to save it”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Celtic tiger

the Celtic tiger

  1. Alternative letter-case form of Celtic Tiger
    • “Meet me behind the mall,” Taylor Swift once sang, with all of the American mystique that carries, but for Irish people, there is something distinctly soulless about an out-of-town shopping precinct in the post-recession era. It represents the hubris and corruption of the Celtic tiger bubble, and...2025 August 25, Emer McHugh, “The emblem of modern Ireland? Not fiddles and Guinness but a soulless shopping plaza”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Forms of Celtic Tiger

alternative formCeltic tiger

Origin of Celtic Tiger

A reference to the Four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan).

Questions about Celtic Tiger

What does Celtic Tiger mean?
Celtic Tiger means the economy of the Republic of Ireland from the mid-1990s to the late-2000s, a period of rapid real economic growth fuelled by foreign direct investment.
What part of speech is Celtic Tiger?
Celtic Tiger is a proper noun.

Words near Celtic Tiger in the dictionary

  1. Celtic music
  2. Celtic punk
  3. Celtic rock
  4. Celtic Sea
  5. Celtic studies
  6. Celtic Tiger
  7. Celtic Wicca
  8. Celtic Wiccan
  9. Celtic Wiccans
  10. Celtically
  11. Celticism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Celtic Tiger (page history and authors); Celtic tiger (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Celtic Tiger.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/celtic_tiger. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.