Word.ws English Dictionary

mabinogion

/mabiˈnɔɡ.jɔn/UK/ˌmæbəˈnoʊɡi.ən/

mabinogion is the plural of mabinogi.

Meaning of mabinogi

Noun

mabinogi (plural mabinogi or mabinogis or mabinogion)

  1. (singular) A Welsh mythological tale; sometimes extended to include similar tales of medieval European traditions.
    • I recollect a Mabinogi, or mythological tale, respecting this piece of water, which runs thus: - In ancient times a door in a rock near tins lake was found open upon a certain day every year.1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 197
  2. (plural) Such tales considered collectively, especially the main sequence of four tales written in Middle Welsh, more commonly known as the Mabinogion or the Four Branches of the Mabinogi.
    • Here the confusion is between the raid on Annwyn by Pryderi which, as I hope on a later occasion to show, is the basic myth of Branwen, and the deliverance of Gweir from Caer Siddi, but under all the confusion is the definite connexion of Gweir with the ‘tale of Pwyll and Pryderi’ which I take to...1953, William John Gruffydd, Rhiannon: An Inquiry into the Origin of the First and Third Branches of the Mabinogi, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, page 91

Proper noun capitalized: Mabinogion

the Mabinogion

  1. The earliest prose literature of Britain, compiled in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions by medieval Welsh authors.

Origin of mabinogion

From Welsh Mabinogi (“instruction for young bards”), coined by the Welsh grammarian William Owen Pughe in 1795. The name originated from mabynnogyon, which occurs at the end of one of the four branches, and is now considered to have been a scribal error, mistaken as the plural for Welsh mabinogi, which is already plural, derived in an unclear manner from mab (“son, boy”).

Questions about mabinogion

What does mabinogion mean?
Mabinogion means the earliest prose literature of Britain, compiled in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions by medieval Welsh authors.
What is mabinogion the plural of?
Mabinogion is the plural of mabinogi.
What part of speech is mabinogion?
Mabinogion is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce mabinogion?
Mabinogion is pronounced /ˌmæbəˈnoʊɡi.ən/ (UK).

Words near mabinogion in the dictionary

  1. Mabinit
  2. mabinlang
  3. mabinlin
  4. mabinlins
  5. mabinogi
  6. mabinogion
  7. mabinogis
  8. Mabins Well
  9. Mabire
  10. Mabitac
  11. Mabiton

Source and license

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