a. Also Keltic. [a. F. celtique or ad. L. celtic-us of the Celts.]
1. Hist. & Archæol. Of or belonging to the ancient Celtæ and their presumed congeners.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Celtique, pertaining to the people of Gaul.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 521. Who … ore the Celtic [Fields] roam’d the utmost Isles.
1756–7. trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), I. Introd. 10. Fragments of Celtic idols lately discovered in the cathedral at Paris.
1839. Thirlwall, Greece, VI. 3. Drawing a Celtic sword from beneath his garments.
1880. Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, xii. 434. Various carvings in spirals, concentric circles, flamboyants and zig-zags, forming part of the Prehistoric series defined by Mr. Franks as the late Celtic.
1882. Rhys, Celtic Britain, 2. Britain was considered to be outside the Celtic world.
2. Epithet of the languages and peoples akin to the ancient Celtic; particularly, of the great branch of the Aryan family of languages that includes Breton, Welsh, Irish, Manx, Scotch Gaelic, the extinct Cornish, and the ancient languages that they represent. Also absol. = Celtic tongue.
1707. E. Lhuyd, Archæol. Brit., Pref. C. The Latin-Celtic or Comparative Vocabulary [cf. p. 290].
1739. D. Malcolm (title), Collection of Letters … in which the usefulness of the Celtic is instanced in illustrating the antiquities of the British Isles.
1764. Rowland Jones (title), An English, Celtic, Greek and Latin English Lexicon.
1839. Keightley, Hist. Eng., I. 78. Beneath them [the clergy] were the vassal Celtic and Cymric princes.
1844. Stanley, Arnold’s Life & Corr., I. v. 245, note. Feudality is especially Keltic and barbarian.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 317. The people … being of Scandinavian, and not Celtic origin.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann. (1863), II. II. iii. 366. Bronze weapons … of a bright yellow colour, like brass or gilded metal—to these the term celtic brass is often applied.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, i. 2. The white-capped peasant-girl … relates the Celtic fairy-tale or the medieval legend.
1871. Tylor, Prim. Cult., I. 40. The keeping up of an old Keltic art.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U.S., III. iv. 351. The Norman-Irish and Celtic-Irish were drawn nearer to one another by common sorrows.
1886. W. Stokes, in Trans. Philol. Soc., 202, heading. The Neo-Celtic Verb Substantive. Ibid., 218. In Old-Celtic bató. 218–9. The two relative forms … must therefore, in protoceltic, have ended in vowels. 242. Both forms in Celtic are toneless proclitics.
Hence Celtically adv., in Celtic fashion. † Celtican a. = CELTIC; spec. of Gallia Celtica. Celticism, (a.) a Celtic custom or expression; (b.) devotion to Celtic customs. Celticity, Celtic quality or character. Celticize v., a. trans. to put into a Celtic form; to adapt to Celtic use; b. intr. to adopt Celtic fashions or usages.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 162. I wrote these things, and dedicated the Celtican spoils.
1837. Fraser’s Mag., XV. 556. Fin Mac Cowl, or, to spell him more Celtically, Fioun Mac Cumhail.
1855. Milman, Lat. Chr. (1864), IX. XIV. vii. 225, note. His Celticism appears from his obstinate adherence to the ancient British usage about Easter.
1882. G. Allen, in Nature Studies, 175. This element [Euskarian] was Celticized, but not exterminated, by the Aryan Celts.
1885–6. Whitley Stokes, Celtic Decl., 43. The Novara inscription, the celticity of which cannot possibly be doubted.
