ONlwSG

cabhall m. 

Forms listed below that have final -il are generally feminine.

[ˈkʰavəɫ̪], [ˈkʰafəɫ̪], gen. cabhaill -[iʎ̪], in the sense ‘seine or purse-net, a net with a circular mouth tied across a stream’ is derived by Cox (1991, 492; 1992, 138; 2002a, 250) from ON kafla, oblique case of kafli m. ‘a round piece of wood; a wooden float on a fishing-net’ (NO), cf. Scots cavil, kav(e)l in the compound kav(e)l-tree ‘a cylindrical piece of wood with a notch on the lower end which, in fishing, is put into the mouth of a fish to extract the hook’ (SND^˄); McDonald (2009, 368) considers the loan likely. MacBain (1911: cabhuil), however, suggests a derivation from MEng. cawell ‘fish basket’. The Scottish Gaelic word occurs in a variety of forms and senses:

A. SG cabhal, cabhall, cabhail, caibhil
A 1. SG cabhal [ˈkʰavəɫ̪]
In Dwelly App.: ‘a trap made of wicker for catching trout or salmon in a stream’, Wester Ross, and, in a separate entry, ‘a bag-net in the form of a cone, used for catching salmon or trout in a river’, Lewis; Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: ‘a fishing net in the shape of a deep bag, held down by weights in the narrow part of a river’, [kɑvəɫ] [sic] ‘hand-net’, ‘a device for catching fish in a burn: a semi-circular opening was made by means of a flat piece of wood and the ends of a piece of willow inserted in a hole at each end of the piece of wood; this held open the mouth of a bag-net which was put into the burn at a place prepared for it so that the fish could not swim past’, all Lewis.

A 2. SG cabhall [ˈkʰavəɫ̪], (Lewis) [ˈkʰafəɫ̪]
(i) cabhall (Cox 1991, 492; 1992, 138; 2002a, 250: ‘a seine or purse-net, a net with a circular mouth tied across a stream’);
(ii) cabhull (MacLennan 1925: ‘a creel for catching fish, a hose-net’).

A 3. SG cabhail [ˈkʰavəl]
(i) cabhail (MacTalla IV, No. 42, p. 3: ‘a (bicycle) frame’; Dwelly 1911: ‘the frame of a cycle’; Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: ‘the body of a car’, Benbecula, [kɑvilʹ], [kɑvəl] ‘a stone dam in a river’, North Uist, ‘a creel for catching fish’ and [kɑu̜əl] ‘a stone wall built at the mouth of a river or head of a loch or inlet to catch fish when the tide recedes’, both Skye; AFB^˄ /kaval/ [sic] ‘basket; creel, fishtrap (esp. in a fishing weir); (naturally) narrow part of stream (where fish are caught), (artificial fishing) weir; (archaic) trunk, hull’, Lewis, Benbecula, Wester Ross, Mull, and, in a separate entry, /kaval/ [sic] ‘trunk, hull; body (also of a car); frame (e.g. of a bicycle)’); 

AFB’s form /kaval/ is apparently not corroborated elsewhere, but on the question of /ɑ/ before -l in unstressed syllables, see Ó Maolalaigh 2008, 163–67, 224–25.


(ii) cabhuil (HSS 1828: ‘a conical, wicker basket, for catching fish’; Sinclair 1890, 134, 391: ‘a kind of creel for catching fish’; MacBain 1911: ‘a conical basket for catching fish’; Dwelly 1911: ‘a kind of creel for catching fish; hose-net; basket’; McDonald 1972: ‘a dam put across a stream with a little opening in it, in which a bag-net is placed so as to catch the trout in a pool’.

A 4. SG caibhil [ˈkʰɛvəl]
(i) caibhil (McDonald 1972: ‘the mouth of a stream where trout are caught’; Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: ‘idem’, [South Uist]);
(ii) caibheil (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: ‘a place made in the river to hold the net when poaching’, South Uist).

B. SG cobhail [ˈkʰɔvəl]
In Shaw 1780: ‘an enclosed place’.

Cox’s (2002a, 250) argument that a development from ON kafla is phonetically sounder than one from MEng. cawell seems unsupported by the range of forms. While MEng. cawell is perhaps a borrowing from Celtic (OED^˄), W cawell ‘basket, pannier; cradle; fish-trap, creel, cage; quiver; (fig.) belly, breast’ (GPC^˄), C kowel ‘basket, cage; hamper’ (GK^˄) and Bret. kavell ‘cradle, creel; crustacean shell’ (DBFF^˄) go back to Late Lat. cavella (< Lat. cūpella, dim. of cūpa ‘a cask or butt’) – as the Scottish Gaelic and Irish words most likely do too. SG cabhall has the primary sense ‘(conical) basket, creel or net for catching fish in a watercourse’, extended to ‘a weir, dam or place where such a device is used’, although there may be input from Scots caul(d) [kɑːl(d)] ‘a weir or dam on a river to divert water into a mill-lade’ (SND^˄); other extended senses include ‘frame, trunk, hull, torso, body of a cart, car or bicycle’, although the sense ‘bicycle frame’ was in at least one instance (MacTalla IV, No. 42, p. 3) adopted directly from Irish usage: cf. Ir. cobhail ‘an enclosed place not covered overhead; a woman’s stays’ (O’Brien 1768 – Shaw’s (1780) SG cobhail ‘enclosed place’ may well have been adopted from O’Brien), ‘an enclosure; (and in a separate entry) a woman’s stays’, cabhal ‘the body of a shirt; the unfinished walls of house’ (O’Reilly 1817), and cabhail ‘the body, the trunk; body of a cart, car etc.; hull or hold of a ship’ (Dinneen 1947: also cobhail), ‘body, trunk, torso; main part, frame; body, bodice; ruins, roofless walls’ (Ó Dónaill 1977).

Ir. cabhlach in the senses ‘trunk, body, frame’ (Dinneen 1947) appears to be a derivative of cabha(i)l etc.; Ir. cabhlach in the senses ‘fleet; navy’ (SG idem), however, is understood to have a different origin (eDIL^˄ and Vendryes 1996, s.v. ¹coblach).

While it is convenient to say that the Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, Cornish and Breton words all derive from Late Latin cavella, they may have been part of a technical vocabulary shared or borrowed among fishing communities over much of the British Isles–Brittany area. Ir. cabhal in the sense ‘cauldron, large pan’ (O’Reilly 1817; Dinneen 1947) may be borrowed from Eng. cowl, coul ‘a tub or similar large vessel for water etc.’, ?itself from Lat. cūpella via Fr. cuvele (OED^˄).