gáu

• gó

From Proto-Celtic *gāwā.^[1]

gáu f (genitive gue, nominative plural goa or gúa)

1. lie, falsehood
   • c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 14^c23

     co beid .i. co mbed a ndéde sin im labrad-sa .i. gáu et fír .i. combad sain a n‑as·berin ó bélib et aní imme·rádin ó chridiu

     so that there may be, i.e. so that those two things might be in my speaking, namely false and true, i.e. so that what I might say with [my] lips and what I might think with [my] heart might be different

   • c. 800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 21^c11

     .i. as·berat as nDía cloine Macc, ol sodin as gó doib.

     i.e. who say that the Son is a God of iniquity, which, however, is a lie on their part.

2. false judgement
   • c. 845, St Gall Glosses on Priscian, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1975, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. II, pp. 49–224, Sg. 40^a15

     Cindas ṁbias iarna cétbuid-sem? ɔid gau dóib-sem in chruth-sin a n-as·berat nad·ṁbed ad plures.

     How then will it be according to their opinion? So that they are wrong [lit. it is a falsehood] then when they say that there is no [comparison] ad plures.

• Middle Irish: gó

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “gáu”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language