tuirse (Irish)

Where does "tuirse" come from?

The Irish noun 'tuirse' descends from Old Irish 'toirse', a feminine noun meaning sorrow, pain, complaining, and weariness or fatigue[1]. It passed into Middle Irish as 'tuirse'[1], and the source traces the word back further to an earlier form 'toros'[1]. Today it covers both physical tiredness and emotional sorrow.

Open questions

• The earlier form 'toros' is mentioned only briefly, with no date or language stage given, so its exact relationship to 'toirse' rests on a single short note. [1]

Full etymology tree

• tuirse (Irish), 'tiredness, weariness, fatigue'
  • inherited tuirse (Middle Irish)
    • inherited toirse (Old Irish)
      • inherited toros (Old Irish)

Descendants and derived words

• atuirse (Irish)
• tuirseach (Irish)
• tuirsigh (Irish)
• tuirsigh (Irish)

Sources

1. tuirse (Irish) - Wiktionary

Updated October 2026

More words starting with T

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris