tanist
/ˈtænɪst/
tanist noun: the heir presumptive to the chieftainship or kingship of a Celtic clan in ancient Ireland, Scotland or Mann.
Noun
tanist (plural tanists)
- The heir presumptive to the chieftainship or kingship of a Celtic clan in ancient Ireland, Scotland or Mann.
- Lover, for her love he prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the walls of Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl them upward in the fog.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 3: Proteus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part I [Telemachia], page 43
- In 1570 Dermot died at 'his own house' of Castle Inch. His brother and tanist, Cormac Mac Teige (fourteenth Lord), succeeded him (Ó Murchadha, p. 16).2007, Mark Wycliffe Samuel, Kate Hamlyn, Blarney Castle: Its History, Development, and Purpose, Cork University Press, page 36
Forms of tanist
| plural | tanists |
|---|
Origin of tanist
From Irish tánaiste (“second-in-command”). Doublet of Tánaiste.
Words formed from tanist
Questions about tanist
- What does tanist mean?
- Tanist means the heir presumptive to the chieftainship or kingship of a Celtic clan in ancient Ireland, Scotland or Mann.
- What part of speech is tanist?
- Tanist is a noun.
- How do you pronounce tanist?
- Tanist is pronounced /ˈtænɪst/.
- What is the plural of tanist?
- The plural of tanist is tanists.
Words near tanist in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tanist (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: “tanist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tanist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.