Just wanted to clarify ,when you see the symbol (gs. ~ ,) after a word in the dictionary, does that mean there is n Genitive version ?

Im using Ó Dónnaill's dictionary.

The word following gs. is the genitive singular of the noun, e.g.

Gadhar (gs. gadhair), meaning gadhair is the genitive of gadhar.

There are also a few words marked with ds., which is the dative singular (form of the noun used
after prepositions like ar, ó, le,..)

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The dialect I use is Cork Irish.
Ar sgáth a chéile a mhairid na daoine, lag agus láidir, uasal is íseal

so when you just see (gs.~) there is no Genitive version ?

e.g. Súmaire (gs. ~, pl. -rí)

Thanks as always Lon Dubh

gs. ~ means the genitive is the same as the nominative - or the same as the headword and is not distinctive.

Gs is genitive singular, the genitive plural is "gpl" in dictionaries.

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Deleted, so as not to mislead anyone -- see correction below.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Thats great thanks.

do any of ye know where I can read on the net about how to change from the head word (nominative singular) to either the gs. gpl. npl. etc ?

As in how do i know what to cut off before I tack on the new ending.

Actually, what I said above about how to derive the genitive forms from what is given in the headword wasn't entirely correct, so I've deleted it. I just read the instructions at the front of the DeBhaldraithe dictionary (the English-Irish complement to Ó Dónaill), which explains what to do if no separate genitive form is given, so follow his (correct) instructions instead.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

my one has only Irish instructions , it was printed in 1998. maybe i can find one in town with English too. probably be handy .

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Bíonn rudaí maithe mall

And as a general rule, ~ can appear anywhere in the dictionary entry as a sort of abbreviation for the headword. So for example, if you look up "céim" (step), I bet that somewhere in the entry you'd find something like ~ ar chéim, step-by-step, which tells you that "céim ar chéim" means "step-by-step". The entries for some headwords are liberally sprinkled with ~'s.

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