cathair

From cat +‎ hair.

cathair (countable and uncountable, plural cathairs)

1. (uncountable) The hair of a cat.
   • 1993, Allen Warfield, Al Brooks, Effective Telemarketing: How to Sell Over the Telephone, page 111:

     How can you tell a cat owner? all the little claw marks on their back...Or by the cathair that sticks to their suit.

   • 1993, Lilian Jackson Braun, The Cat Who Wasn't There:

     The conscientious Mrs. Fulgrove was driving away as he pulled into the barnyard, and he waved to her; the woman's scowl indicated that she had worked overtime because of the vast amount of cathair everywhere.

   • 2000, Tamaqua: Volume Seven Issue One, page 75:

     Meditate on the steady drone and the rocking of the back and forth vacuum dance you do as you suck up the cathair, the ashes, the seeds, the stray leaves.

   • 2000, Nimrod International Journal - Volume 44, page 128:

     Cat likes to brush against it and sun on the deck chair, the cushion is a mat of gray cathair.

2. (countable) A single hair of a cat.
   • 1968, Benedict Kiely, Dogs Enjoy the Morning, Penguin Books, published 1971, page 18:

     A pimpled chin, dark with cathairs, a mouthful of irregular teeth, were visible below helmet and goggles.

   • 1994, Lilian Jackson Braun, The Cat Who Blew the Whistle, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →ISBN, page 81:

     The closed-door policy, he liked to explain, kept the cats out of his hair and the cathairs out of his typewriter.

   • 2001 May 29, Adrian Vickers, “It's a Dulux day”, in uk.misc‎^[1] (Usenet), archived from the original on 10 August 2025:

     I'm sure they use the same stuff that sticks cathairs to clothes in paint. It's just as difficult to remove... […] [T]he first law of cathairs is they get everywhere, including where it's physically impossible, etc.

From Irish cathair.

cathair (plural cathairs)

1. An ancient Irish fortification of stone or earthwork.
   • 1848, William F[rederick] Wakeman, “Raths or Duns”, in Archæologia Hibernica. A Hand-book of Irish Antiquities, Pagan and Christian: Especially of Such as Are Easy of Access from the Irish Metropolis., Dublin: James M^cGlashan, […]. William S. Orr & Co. […] London, part I (Pagan Antiquities), page 47:

     Several cathairs which we have examined are not circular in plan, but appear to have been formed to suit the contour of the eminence upon which they stand; and others are of an oval form.

   • 1977, “The Dúns of Aran”, in A World of Stone: Life, Folklore and Legends of the Aran Islands, O’Brien Educational, published 1980, →ISBN, page 28:

     There were probably other cathairs and duns on the Aran Islands which were not as sturdily built or not as well preserved as those that survived.

   • 1992, Theresa McDonald, Achill: 5000 B.C. to 1900 A.D.: Archaeology, History, Folklore, →ISBN, page 128:

     ‘On this island there are three cyclopean cathairs but their stones have been nearly all removed to build the modern little houses which are nearly in as rude a style as the Cahirs ever were. […]’

• Cathari, Chaitra, chirata, cithara

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɑhəɾʲ/^[1], /ˈkahəɾʲ/^[2][3][4]
• (Cois Fharraige) IPA^(key): /kaɾʲ/, [kaːɾʲ]^[5]
• (Ulster) IPA^(key): /ˈkahæɾʲ/^[6] (as if spelled catháir)

From Old Irish cathair,^[7] from Proto-Celtic *katrixs (“fortification”).

cathair f (genitive singular cathrach or caithreach, nominative plural cathracha or caithreacha)

1. city
2. (historical) enclosed church establishment; monastic city
3. (archaeology) circular stone fort, a ringfort
4. dwelling(-place); bed, lair

• Alternative genitive singular: caithreach
• Alternative plural: caithreacha

cathair f (genitive singular caithre or caithreach)

1. alternative form of caithir (“down, pubic hair”)

• Alternative genitive singular: caithreach

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977), “cathair”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• Dinneen, Patrick S. (1904), “caṫair”, in Foclóir Gaeḋilge agus Béarla, 1st edition, Dublin: Irish Texts Society, page 121
• de Bhaldraithe, Tomás (1959), “cathair”, in English-Irish Dictionary, An Gúm
• “cathair”, in New English-Irish Dictionary, Foras na Gaeilge, 2013–2025

• caithir, cathir

From Proto-Celtic *katrixs (“fortification”), an unusual formation; possibly cognate with Old English hēaþor (“enclosure, prison”) or Serbo-Croatian kȍtar (“administrative unit, province”), and the a-vocalism suggests that all three could have been borrowed from a non-Indo-European substrate.^[1] Pokorny instead derives it from Proto-Indo-European *kat- (“to link or weave together; chain, net”), with Latin casa as another possible cognate.^[2]

• IPA^(key): /ˈka.θəɾʲ/
  • (Blasse) [ˈka.θɪɾʲ]
  • (Griffith) [ˈka.θɨɾʲ]

cathair f (genitive cathrach, nominative plural cathraig)

1. stone enclosure, fortress, castle; dwelling
2. monastic settlement, enclosure; monastery, convent
3. fortified city, city

For quotations using this term, see Citations:cathair.

• cathrar (“citizen”)

• Irish: cathair
• Manx: caayr
• Scottish Gaelic: cathair

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “1 cathair”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

• IPA^(key): /ˈkʰahɪɾʲ/

From Old Irish cathaír (“chair”), from Latin cathēdra, from Ancient Greek καθέδρα (kathédra). Cognate with Irish cathaoir.

cathair f (genitive singular cathrach, plural cathraichean)

1. chair, seat, bench, throne

• cathair ghàirdeanach (“armchair”)
• àrd-chathair, breas-chathair, cathair-rìgh, cathair-rìoghail, rìgh-chathair, torr-chathair (“throne”)

From Old Irish cathair.

cathair f (genitive singular cathrach, plural cathraichean)

1. town, city

• catharra (“civil; civic, public”, adjective)

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

cathair f (genitive singular cathrach, plural cathraichean)

1. gig (two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage)
2. bed (of any garden stuff)
3. stock, colewort, cabbage
4. plot (of land)
5. (obsolete) guard, sentinel, warder

• Edward Dwelly (1911), “cathair”, in Faclair Gàidhlig gu Beurla le Dealbhan [The Illustrated Gaelic–English Dictionary]‎^[2], 10th edition, Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, →ISBN
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “cathaír”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “1 cathair”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language