7-by-many Thursday 9th Feb word suggestion

[Maudland]

Hello Alan,

I’m not suggesting it’s common, but SLIEVE is a word used in Northern Ireland to mean mountain, and people in the UK at least are likely to have heard of it, as it’s used in the name (like we use ben for Scottish mountains).

It’s in the dictionary: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/slieve

I always forget it’s not in the word list!

What do you reckon?
Madeleine

[Alan W]

As well as the Collins, slieve is in the American Heritage dictionary. It doesn't seem to be in any of the Oxford dictionaries, or in Wiktionary.

Usage examples are pretty easy to find in publications from Ireland and, to a lesser extent, the UK. However, about 99.9% of these examples are in place names, and hence with a capital S - e.g. Slieve Bloom, Slieve Russell. An example using the word as a common noun comes from an online guide to Ireland:

Mountains in Ireland tend to be stacked around the edge of the country. Most bear the Irish name for mountain, which is slieve. Hill-walkers can enjoy long-slieve and short-slieve routes, as well as parts which are entirely slieveless.

I'm not thinking of adding slieveless, which is obviously just part of the author's joke, but I'll add slieve as a rare word.