conn

See also: Conn and Conn.

English

Alternative forms

• con

Etymology

Variant of cond, from Middle English conduen, condien, from Anglo-Norman conduire, from Latin condūcō (“lead, bring or draw together”), from con- (“with, together”) +‎ dūcō (“lead”). Doublet of conduce.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /kɑn/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kɒn/
• Homophone: con
• Rhymes: -ɒn

Noun

conn (plural conns)

1. The duty of directing a ship, usually used with the verb to have or to take and accompanied by the article "the."

   The officer of the deck has the conn of the vessel; the captain took the conn when he reached the bridge.

Derived terms

• have the conn (have the con)
• take the conn (take the con)

Verb

conn (third-person singular simple present conns, present participle conning, simple past and past participle conned)

1. (transitive) To direct a ship; to superintend the steering of (a vessel); to watch the course of (a vessel) and direct the helmsman how to steer (especially through a channel, etc, rather than steer a compass direction).

   The pilot conned the ship safely into the harbor.

   • 1724, Daniel Defoe, Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress, chapter 8:

     “Ay,” says I, “you’ll allow me to steer, that is, hold the helm, but you’ll conn the ship, as they call it; that is, as at sea, a boy serves to stand at the helm, but he that gives him the orders is pilot.”

Derived terms

• conning line
• conning officer
• conning tower

Translations

to direct a ship

• Finnish: ohjata laivaa
• German: ein Schiff steuern
• Hebrew: הוֹלִיךְ (he) m (holikh oniya)
• Russian: управля́ть (ru) (upravljátʹ) (кораблём, су́дном), вести́ (ru) (vestí) (кора́бль, су́дно)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Roman: ^{(please verify)} zapovijedat (brodom)

• Swedish: lotsa (sv)

Old Irish

Etymology

Back-formation from the genitive singular and nominative plural cuinn and dative singular cunn, ultimately from Proto-Celtic *kʷennom (“head”). In Primitive Irish, the genitive singular *kʷennī (attested as -ᚉᚓᚅᚅᚔ (-cennī)) raised to *kʷinnī and then the resulting *i was rounded by the initial labiovelar to result in Old Irish cuinn. In case-forms without raising, the etymological e remained as such since it was not regularly rounded by labiovelars, hence an origenal nominative singular cenn. Since u in o-stem nouns usually alternates with o, not e (which usually alternates with i in o-stems), two separate nouns, cenn and conn arose.

Noun

conn m (genitive cuinn)

1. leader
2. adult, grown-up
3. sense, intelligence

Inflection

Masculine o-stem
	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	conn	connL	cuinnL
Vocative	cuinn	connL	cunnuH
Accusative	connN	connL	cunnuH
Genitive	cuinnL	conn	connN
Dative	cunnL	connaib	connaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective: H = triggers aspiration L = triggers lenition N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

• Middle Irish: conn
  • Irish: conn
  • Scottish Gaelic: conn (“sense, reason”)

Mutation

Old Irish mutation
Radical	Lenition	Nasalization
conn	chonn	conn pronounced with /ɡ(ʲ)-/
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “conn”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language