At 8:38:40 PM on Wednesday, December 16, 2009, dgkilday57
wrote:
> On the other hand a Celtic loanword is also formally
> possible, since we have Old Irish <olc> 'evil'; something
> like *mori-ulk- might literally have meant 'Seeteufel'.
> How plausible this is as a loanword under these
> circumstances, I cannot say.
Matasovic derives OIr. <olc> from PCelt. *ulkWo- 'bad,
evil', from PIE *wlkWo- 'wolf'. He notes a Lepontic PN
<Ulkos>. He adds a note:
The meaning of this word in PCelt. could have been 'wolf',
as in PIE. Another etymology, less persuasive in my
opinion, relates OIr. <olc> to Lat. <ulciscor> 'take
vengeance'.
His references for this entry: LEIA O-19f., LP 43, De
Bernardo Stempel 1999: 553, McCone 1985, McCone 1996: 44.
Brian