Word.ws English Dictionary

dullaghan

/ˈduː.ləˌhɑːn/

dullaghan is the alternative form of dullahan.

Meaning of dullahan

Noun

dullahan (plural dullahans)

  1. (Irish) A black-clad (usually male) horserider in Irish folklore which carries its severed head like a lantern and may be repelled by gold; when it stops riding (or calls out someone's name), someone will die. (Also called the Gan Ceann, Irish for "[one] without a head".)
    • The dullahans always came in a mist. But Devin wasn't afraid of dullahans. If he saw one, he would club it over the head. But then Devin remembered that dullahans didn't have heads. He grasped his stick a little tighter in his hand, […]1990, Elona Malterre, The Last Wolf of Ireland, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 3

See all 2 meanings of dullahan

Noun capitalized: Dullaghan

Dullaghan (plural Dullaghans)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of dullahan.
    • Ballindolaghan, in the parish of Baslick, Roscommon, must be a horrible place to live in, if the Dullaghan that gave it the name ever shows himself now to the inhabitants. Every one knows that a ghost without a head is [horrible].1869, The Athenaeum, page 238
    • There is another gruesome spirit, of the hobgoblin species, who is generally seen without his head—in fact, it is doubtful if the Dullaghan has ever been observed with his cranium properly placed on his body, as be generally carries it ...1897, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, page 250

Proper noun capitalized: Dullaghan

Dullaghan

  1. A surname from Irish.

Forms of dullaghan

pluraldullaghans
pluralDullaghans

Words that rhyme with dullaghan

34 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about dullaghan

What does dullaghan mean?
Dullaghan means a surname from Irish.
What is dullaghan the alternative form of?
Dullaghan is the alternative form of dullahan.
What part of speech is dullaghan?
Dullaghan can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce dullaghan?
Dullaghan is pronounced /ˈduː.ləˌhɑːn/.
What is the plural of dullaghan?
The plural of dullaghan is dullaghans.

Words near dullaghan in the dictionary

  1. dull-headed
  2. dull-minded
  3. dull-witted
  4. dulla
  5. dullable
  6. dullaghan
  7. dullaghans
  8. dullahan
  9. dullahans
  10. Dullao
  11. dullard

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dullaghan (page history and authors); Dullaghan (page history and authors); dullahan (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: “dullaghan.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dullaghan. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.