cumdach
/ˈkuːdəx/
cumdach noun: an elaborate ornamented metal reliquary box or case used to hold Early Medieval Irish manuscripts or relics.
Noun
cumdach (plural cumdachs)
- An elaborate ornamented metal reliquary box or case used to hold Early Medieval Irish manuscripts or relics.
- The following is a list of the Irish cumdachs of which anything is known, from which it is evident that the custom of making these cumdachs prevailed in Ireland from the ninth to the sixteenth century.1878, Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language, volume II, Dublin: […] the University Press, […], page 159
- Three MSS. still in existence are known, from historical evidence, to have had cumdachs, although they have been lost.1904, J[ohn] Romilly Allen, Celtic Art in Pagan and Christian Times, page 208
Forms of cumdach
| plural | cumdachs |
|---|
Origin of cumdach
From Middle Irish cumdach, from Old Irish cumtach.
Questions about cumdach
- What does cumdach mean?
- Cumdach means an elaborate ornamented metal reliquary box or case used to hold Early Medieval Irish manuscripts or relics.
- What part of speech is cumdach?
- Cumdach is a noun.
- How do you pronounce cumdach?
- Cumdach is pronounced /ˈkuːdəx/.
- What is the plural of cumdach?
- The plural of cumdach is cumdachs.
Words near cumdach in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cumdach (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: “cumdach.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cumdach. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.