geilfinen.
/ˈɡeɪlfɪni/, U.S. /ˈɡeɪlˌfɪni/, Irish English /ˈɡeːlfɪni/ Irish History.
One of the four divisions of the fine (fine n.4), comprising the chief and his four nearest male relatives. Cf. iarfine n., indfine n.
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society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinship group > clan > [noun] > Irish > branches of
geilfine1869
iarfine1875
indfine1875
1869 W. N. Hancock et al. tr. Senchus Mor: Pt. II in Anc. Laws Irel. II. 161 The ‘Geilfine’-tribe relationship in the direct line, such as the father, and the son, and the grandson, and the great grandson, and the great great grandson to the fifth generation.
1875 H. J. S. Maine Lect. Early Hist. Inst. 211 A Geilfine class may consist of a father and four sons who are not in the same degree.
1882 C. G. Walpole Short Hist. Irel. i. 9 The father and the four sons formed a family group of five households, which went by the name of the Geilfine.
1903 P. W. Joyce Social Hist. Anc. Ireland I. vii. 188 The Gelfine system, under which four groups of persons, all nearly related to each other, held four adjacent tracts of land as a sort of common property.
1967 F. J. Byrne in Moody & Martin Course Irish Hist. iii. 49 The brehon lawyers drew up a very elaborate scheme of the different degrees of relationship. The geilfhine, sometimes called deirbfhine was the normal family group—basically the relationship between a man and his brothers; but it was extended over five generations to include his own children, his father's brothers, his grandfather's brothers, and even his great-grandfather and his brothers!
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1933; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1869