Syniad means, broadly, idea. And much like the word idea, it’s complex, nuanced, and used in a wide range of scenarios. Give this article a read and hopefully it’ll give you some syniad of how to start using it!
This masculine noun comes from the fairly-uncommon verb synio, which means to think or to imagine. Synio itself is derived from the Latin sentio, which you may recognise as also being the root of the English sense. Here it’s been noun-ified using the ending –iad, just like caru (to love) becomes cariad (the concept of love, a lover) and dychwelyd (to return) becomes dychweliad (a return). Synio also appears in the word cydsynio (to agree).
The plural of syniad is syniadau (ideas). It can’t take any mutations.
syniad
idea
syniadau
ideas
Though pretty much all the uses of syniad can be translated as idea in English, they are subtly different. These alternative translations might help elaborate those differences.
- syniad = a concept, as in syniad i o wyliau = my idea of a holiday
- syniad = a plan, as in dyna syniad da = that’s a good idea
- syniad = an opinion, as in ei syniadau ar wleidyddiaeth = his ideas on politics
- syniad = a guess, as in mae gen i syniad ble mae hi = I have an idea of where she is
Similar vocabulary includes dyfais (an invention), breuddwyd (a dream), barn (an opinion), and cysyniad (a concept). You might have guessed that cysyniad comes from syniad itself, as does camsyniad (a misconception or a fallacy).
The word thought in English is a bit tricksy in Welsh. We usually use the word meddwl, which is identical to the verb-noun meddwl (to think), for thought / thinking as a general concept. But for an individual thought there isn’t really a specific word like there is in English. Syniad is pretty commonly used, but in some contexts barn or amcan (notion, aim) might be more appropriate, or you might want to rephrase the sentence so that you can employ meddwl as a noun.
Dw i’n ceisio meddwl am syniadau newydd ar gyfer fy marddoniaeth.
I’m trying to think of new ideas for my poetry.
It is possible in Welsh to literally translate the expression I have no idea, creating does gen i ddim syniad. But if you want to sound super idiomatic, a really good word to be aware of is clem, which you could roughly translate as an inkling or clue.
If you’ve read our article on the word ffôn (phone), you’ll know that my sister’s English-speaking boyfriend is very familiar with the phrase ble mae… (where is… ) because of how often she loses her ffôn. I can proudly report that he’s now also mastered the often-appropriate response dim clem (no idea).
Compared to other anifeiliau (animals), human beings have pretty big ymenyddiau (brains), which mean that over the millennia we’ve come up with some good dyfeisiau (inventions), syniadau, and darganfyddiadau (discoveries).
So, I thought it would be fun to finish up this article with a list of some syniadau you may not have known came from the meddyliau (minds) of great Welsh thinkers.
- Isaac Roberts from Sir Ddinbych (Denbighshire) developed the technoleg (technology) needed for deep-space photography
- mathamategwr (mathematician) William Jones, from Ynys Môn (Anglesey), chose the symbol π to represent pi
- Philip Vaughan of Caerfyrddin (Carmarthen) first patented treuliau (ball-bearings)
- also from Caerfyrddin, Mary Wynne Warner pioneered developments in topoleg (topology) which have been applied to the prediction of daeargrynfeydd (earthquakes)
- though Mary Quant, inventor of the minisgert (miniskirt) was born in London, she was from teulu Cymreig (a Welsh family)
- Abertawe (Swansea)’s Edward Bowen was part of the team that developed radar so that it could be installed onto awyrennau (aircrafts)
- Pryce Jones, a brethynnwr (draper) from y Drenewydd (Newtown) created the world’s first large-scale cwmni archebu (mail-order business)
- and of course, Aneurin Bevan from Blaenau Gwent spearheaded our beloved GIG (NHS)
