imresan

Old Irish

Alternative forms

• imbressan, imbresan (Würzburg variants)

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *ambiwritsonom, a prefixed derivation of *sonom. *Sonom is in turn derived from the root Proto-Indo-European *senh₂‐ (“to reach, attain”). Effectively contains the prefixes imm- +‎ frith-.

Gordon also connects imresan to Irish ar son (“instead of, in place of”), which has been connected to unrelated words by previous authors.

Noun

imresan n (genitive imresin, nominative plural imbresna)

1. verbal noun of imm·fresna: contention, strife, controversy

Inflection

Neuter o-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	imresanN	imresanN	imresanL, imresna, imbresna
Vocative	imresanN	imresanN	imresanL, imresna, imbresna
Accusative	imresanN	imresanN	imresanL, imresna, imbresna
Genitive	imresainL, imresinL	imresan	imresanN
Dative	imresunL	imresnaib	imresnaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
imresan (pronounced with /h/ in h-prothesis environments)	unchanged	n-imresan
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

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