sùil – eye
Listen to the pronunciation guide
Short and simple, and a very common word. Sùil is eye and the plural is sùilean. In addition, the word has a meaning in the Gaelic phrase for "look". When asking a person to "take a look at this", we say thoir sùil air an seo, literally "take an eye at this".
Sùil is also used to mean expectation. We say: tha sùil agam ris mu shia uairean, "I am expecting him about six o’clock".
The old fear of an droch shùil, or "the evil eye", is not unique to the Gaels, but the phrase is common enough.
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