handbook of the origin of place-names in wales and monmouthshire

There's Cumwhitton, Cumwhinton, Cumranton,Cumrangan, Cumrew, and Cumcatch,And many mair Cums i' the county,But none with Cumdivock can match.Cymmer means a junction or confluence, and is frequently applied to places situated near the junction of twoor more rivers. The root is related to aber (vide abet).Din is an ancient Welsh word for a fortified hill, a camp, from which we have our dinas, a fortified town or city,and probably the English denizen. Our cities were once surrounded by fortified walls, like Chester, onaccount of which every one of them was denominated dinas. Proffessor Rhys groups the Welsh din with theIrish dun, the Anglo-Saxon tun, and the English town.The dunum, dinum, and dinium of the Romans are probably allied with it.The English suffix bury is closely related to it in meaning. Very few Welsh place-names have the terminationburgh, bury, or borough. The root is almost an English monopoly. Home Took says that a burgh or boroughformerly meant a fortified town." In the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica" we find the following exposition of the word: - Bourgignons or Burgundians, one of the nations who over-ran the Roman Empire, and settled in Gaul.They were of great stature and very warlike, for which reason the Emperor Valentinian the Great engagedthem against the Germans. They lived in tents, which were close to each other, that they might the morereadily unite in arms on any unforeseen attack. These conjunctions of tents they called burghs, and theywere to them what towns are to us." It is supposed that the Burgundians introduced the word to theGermans, and they, again, left it in England as a trace of their settlement here.Dol signifies a meadow. Dol-dir, meadow-land. We find it in many of our place-names, and also in variousforms in Arundel, Kendal (Pen -ddol), Annandale, Dalkeith, Dalrymple, Dovedale, &c. The word is found innames of places situate in valleys all over Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany.Dwfr is the modern Welsh for water. It is frequently spelt dwr : Cwmdwr, the water-vale. In English it hassuffered much from phonetic decay: Derwent, Dover, Appledore, Durham, Dore, Thur, Durra, &c. It is alsofound in European names: Dordogne, Adour, Durbian, Durbach, Douron, Dwerna, Oder, &c. (" Words andPlaces' p. 200). It may be compared with the Cornish dour, the Gaelic and Irish dur and dobhar, pronounceddoar, and the Greek udor, all derived probably from the Celtic dubr.Dyffryn is popularly derived from dwfr, water, and hynt, a way, a course ; literally a water-course, or a valethrough which a river takes its course. In the ancient Welsh laws the word dyffrynt is used to denote a river.Ynysoedd yn nyffrynt," islands in a river. It may be a compound of dwfr-bryn, signifying a hilly place throughwhich water flows.Gallt means an ascent, a slope. Gallt o goed, a woody slope or eminence. In North Wales it signifies "a steephill," and in South Wales "a coppice of wood."Garth originally meant a buttress, an inclosure. The Norse garth, the Persian gird, and the Anglo-Saxon yard,denote a place girded round, or guarded. Garden is a place fenced round for special cultivation. Buarth, frombu, kine, and garth, a small inclosure, was situated on a hill in perilous times. Lluarth from llu, a legion, andgarth, inclosure, means an entrenchment on a hill. In course of time the word became to signify a ridge, ahill, a rising eminence, a promontory.Gelli-Cell means a wood, a copse. The simpler form cell meant a grove, and the Irish coill bears an identicalmeaning. Cell ysgaw, an elder grove. The aborigines of Scotland were called Ceoilldaoin, which meant " thepeople of the wood," which name was changed by the Romans to Caledonia. A great number of places havereceived their names from species of trees, as Clynog, Pantycelyn, Clyn eiddw, &c.Glan means brink, side, shore. Glan yr afon, the river side, or the bank of the river. Glan y tnor, the seashore. The word is generally prefixed to river-names, as Glan-Conwy, Glan Taf, &c.Glas is used to denote blue, azure, green. When applied to water it signifies blue - Dulas, black-blue; butwhen applied to land it means green; Caeglas, green field. The word is supposed by some Cymric scholarsto be allied to the Greek glaukos, both expressing the same colours - those of the sea. Glaucus was a seadeity.Origin of Place-names in Wales & Monmouthshire Page 8