conn

See also: Conn and Conn.

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Variant of cond, from Middle English conduen, condien, from Anglo-Norman conduire, from Latin condūcō (lead, bring or draw together), from con- (with, together) + dūcō (lead). Doublet of conduce.

Pronunciation

Noun

conn (plural conns)

  1. The duty of directing a ship, usually used with the verb to have or to take and accompanied by the article "the."
    The officer of the deck has the conn of the vessel; the captain took the conn when he reached the bridge.

Derived terms

Verb

conn (third-person singular simple present conns, present participle conning, simple past and past participle conned)

  1. (transitive) To direct a ship; to superintend the steering of (a vessel); to watch the course of (a vessel) and direct the helmsman how to steer (especially through a channel, etc, rather than steer a compass direction).
    The pilot conned the ship safely into the harbor.
    • 1724, Daniel Defoe, Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress, chapter 8:
      “Ay,” says I, “you’ll allow me to steer, that is, hold the helm, but you’ll conn the ship, as they call it; that is, as at sea, a boy serves to stand at the helm, but he that gives him the orders is pilot.”

Derived terms

Translations

Old Irish

Etymology

Back-formation from the genitive singular and nominative plural cuinn and dative singular cunn, ultimately from Proto-Celtic *kʷennom (head). In Primitive Irish, the genitive singular *kʷennī (attested as -ᚉᚓᚅᚅᚔ (-cennī)) raised to *kʷinnī and then the resulting *i was rounded by the initial labiovelar to result in Old Irish cuinn. In case-forms without raising, the etymological e remained as such since it was not regularly rounded by labiovelars, hence an original nominative singular cenn. Since u in o-stem nouns usually alternates with o, not e (which usually alternates with i in o-stems), two separate nouns, cenn and conn arose.

Noun

conn m (genitive cuinn)

  1. leader
  2. adult, grown-up
  3. sense, intelligence

Inflection

Masculine o-stem
Singular Dual Plural
Nominative conn connL cuinnL
Vocative cuinn connL cunnuH
Accusative connN connL cunnuH
Genitive cuinnL conn connN
Dative cunnL connaib connaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective:
  • H = triggers aspiration
  • L = triggers lenition
  • N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

  • Middle Irish: conn
    • Irish: conn
    • Scottish Gaelic: conn (sense, reason)

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
RadicalLenitionNasalization
conn chonn conn
pronounced with /ɡ(ʲ)-/
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

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