ONlwSG

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sleamacair m. *[ˈʃʎɛ̃maɡ̊əɾʲ], 

Cf. [ˈʃlʹɛmɑkəð] (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄: Lewis).

gen. idem, in the sense ‘sly person’ is derived by Mackenzie (1910, 385) from ‘N. slæmr “bad”’; so also MacBain (1911) and MacDonald (2009, 409). MacLennan (1925) lists sleamacair ‘sly person’, 

Although MacLennan inadvertently describes sleamacair as an adjective.

and Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄ lists sleamacair ‘a slimy type of person’ (Lewis). The spelling sleamacair, for sleamagair, evidently goes back to Mackenzie.

The word slæmr is unattested in Old Norse and was no doubt drawn by Mackenzie from Cleasby’s (1874) Ice. slæmr, in the metaphorical sense ‘vile, bad’. At any rate, ON æ [ɛː] would be expected to yield SG [ɛː] or (broken) [ia], not short [ɛ]. It seems likely that SG sleamagair goes back to Scots slammack in the senses ‘a hasty mouthful of food, a snatch or gobble of food; a piece or portion, especially of food, seized by force or taken on the sly’ and, as a verb, ‘to take food furtively, to sneak titbits from the table; to lay hold of anything by means not entirely fair or honourable’ (SND^˄, s.v. slammach; hence SG slamag ‘a slug (of liquid)’, cf. Faclan bhon t-Sluagh^˄) + the Scottish Gaelic agentive suffix -air.

The nature and origin of the suffix is problematic. For -[əɾʲ] in peripheral dialects, perhaps the result of confusion between the agentive suffixes -air -[aɾʲ] and -aire -[əɾʲə], see Ó Maolalaigh 2013, 210–13; cf. duil fhear (*duilear), ealbhar and slabhcar.

Of Jonathan Swift’s 1726 Gulliver’s Travels, Grennan (≈1945, 201 fn 15) writes that ‘[o]ccasionally there is bait for the ingenious in such remote but provocative resemblances as the Irish [leg. Scottish Gaelic 

Neither sleamacair nor tramailteach appears to be attested in Irish.

] sleamacair and tramailteach, the first meaning “a sly person”, the second “whimsical and capricious”, to the Lilliputian Slamecksan and Tramecksan, the fustian names for Whigs and Tories.’ The earliest reference to SG sleamacair seems to be Mackenzie’s (1910), and the earliest reference to SG tramailteach – which may be based on Scots thrum in the sense ‘whim, fit of ill-humour’ (SND^˄) – seems to be M^cAlpine’s (1832) Scottish Gaelic dictionary: ‘tramailteach adj. “whimsical, capricious, freakish” ’, cf. ‘tramailt f. “a most unaccountable whim or freak” ’. Swift’s Slamecksan (the low-heeled shoe-wearers) may well be connected with Scots slammack, cf. also Ulster Scots slammekin ‘untidy, slovenly’ (Macafee 1996), while Swift’s Tramecksan (the high-heeled shoe-wearers) may be an adaptation of Scots tram ‘a very tall, thin, ungainly person, especially in regard to having long legs’ (SND^˄); at any rate, the terms are conceivably double plurals, with Eng. -s + -(e)n (as in brethren).

Although influence from an (Antrim) Irish plural -an (cf. Holmer 1940, 44–46 + Note, for the Glens of Antrim, and 1942, 76–84, for Rathlin; and cf. SG -an, Mx -yn) should perhaps not be ruled out. In 1695, Swift was appointed prebend of Kilroot, in County Antrim, in the cathedral of Connor: ‘[i]n this sparsely populated, isolated, neglected, and overwhelmingly Scottish Presbyterian parish he was installed on 15 March’ (Probyn 2004); although he did not resign from Kilroot until 1698, Swift returned to England the following year (ibid.). For Swift’s view of the Irish language, see his On Barbarous Denominations in Ireland (in Scott 1905, VII, 343–50, also available at CELT^˄).