Word.ws English Dictionary

Ossian

Ossian proper noun: a male given name from Irish; rather rare in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Proper noun

Ossian

  1. A male given name from Irish; rather rare in the Anglo-Saxon world.
    • Fingal! thou king of heroes! Ossian, next to him in war! ye have fought in your youth; your names are renowned in song.1765, James Macpherson, The Poems of Ossian, Tauchnitz, published 1847, page 204
  2. A town in Jefferson Township, Wells County, Indiana, United States.
  3. A minor city in Winneshiek County, Iowa, United States.
  4. A town in Livingston County, New York, United States.
  5. A river that flows from Loch Ossian, Highland council area, Scotland, ultimately joining the River Spean.

Origin of Ossian

An anglicisation, made known by James Macpherson, of Irish Oisín, diminutive form of os (“deer”).

Words formed from Ossian

Questions about Ossian

What does Ossian mean?
Ossian means a male given name from Irish; rather rare in the Anglo-Saxon world.
What part of speech is Ossian?
Ossian is a proper noun.

Words near Ossian in the dictionary

  1. Ossett
  2. osseus
  3. Ossewabrandwag
  4. ossi-
  5. ossia
  6. Ossian
  7. Ossianesque
  8. Ossianic
  9. Ossianism
  10. Ossianize
  11. Ossianized

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Ossian (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: “Ossian.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ossian. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.