Word.ws English Dictionary

clurichaun

clurichaun noun: a mischievous, potentially malicious fairy, akin to the leprechaun, that greatly loves drinking and tends to haunt breweries, pubs and wine cellars.

clurichaun: a mischievous, potentially malicious fairy, akin to the leprechaun, that greatly loves drinking and...
Image: Jacobs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

clurichaun (plural clurichauns)

  1. (Irish) A mischievous, potentially malicious fairy, akin to the leprechaun, that greatly loves drinking and tends to haunt breweries, pubs and wine cellars.
    • The Cluricaune, called in Leinster Leprechaun, in Ulster Logheriman, seems a being peculiar to Ireland.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 179
    • The Cluricaune possesses a knowledge of hidden treasures, but does not discover them till he is pressed to the utmost.1828, Thomas Crofton Croker, Fairy Legends and Traditions of South Ireland, volume III, London: John Murray, page 8

Forms of clurichaun

pluralclurichauns
alternative formcluracan
alternative formcluracaun
alternative formcluricaun
alternative formcluricaune
alternative formclúrachán

Origin of clurichaun

From Irish clutharachán, from Irish cluthar (“sheltered, cosy; secretive”) + Irish -achán (“diminutive suffix”) (compare same suffix in Irish leipreachán and lucharachán (“leprechaun”)). William Butler Yeats, citing folklorist Nicholas O'Kearney, derives it from clobhair-ceann, from clobhair (“hunched, bent”) + ceann (“head”), but this lacks semantic plausibility.

Questions about clurichaun

What does clurichaun mean?
Clurichaun means a mischievous, potentially malicious fairy, akin to the leprechaun, that greatly loves drinking and tends to haunt breweries, pubs and wine cellars.
What part of speech is clurichaun?
Clurichaun is a noun.
What is the plural of clurichaun?
The plural of clurichaun is clurichauns.

Words near clurichaun in the dictionary

  1. clupeocephalans
  2. clupeoid
  3. clupeoids
  4. clupeomorph
  5. clupeomorphs
  6. clurichaun
  7. clurichauns
  8. CLUs
  9. cluse
  10. cluses
  11. clusia

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clurichaun (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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