Today, our Welsh word of the day is mwys. It actually has more than one meaning – but today we’ll mostly be talking about its meaning of ambiguous, for which it’s synonymous with its sister-word amwys.
mwys
ambiguous
In particular, mwys is a useful word in Welsh because it’s used to translate a pun. There’s not really one single word for pun in Welsh but you can say gair mwys or mwysair, both combining mwys with gair (a word) to create a compound meaning of an ambiguous word. Sometimes, especially in older literature, you might see amwys instead of mwys.
Mwys and amwys are also related to words like amwysedd (ambiguity) and diamwys (unambiguous).
Though amwys can’t mutate, given that it starts with a vowel, mwys is subject to the soft mutation:
Soft mutation
fwys
Nasal mutation
N/A
Aspirate mutation
N/A
Mwys and amwys aren’t the only words in Welsh that mean ambiguous, equivocal, or unclear – though to my knowledge they are the only ones you can use when talking about geiriau mwys (puns). Other options include:
- aneglur = unclear, obscure
- myngus = unclear (of speech)
- amhendant = uncertain
- ansicr = uncertain, unsure
- amheus = uncertain, doubtful
- daueiriog = equivocal
Mwys feels a little different to these, though, in that its association with geiriau mwys has given it connotations of medr (cleverness) rather than just amwysedd or deceitfulness.
And of course, it also stands out in that ambiguous isn’t its only meaning. With a different etymology coming from Latin, mwys is also an old-fashioned feminine noun in Welsh meaning a basket or hamper, pluralised as mwysi. However, it’s very rarely used in this sense these days.
Esboniodd Rhodri’n amyneddgar mai gair mwys oedd enw’r llyfr.
Rhodri patiently explained that the name of the book was a pun.
Geiriau mwys are a kind of digrifwch (humour) which play on the meanings of geiriau, requiring ffraethineb (wit) and quick meddwl (thinking). You can also refer to the act of making geiriau mwys as troi geiriau (turning words / spinning words), or literally translate the English expression playing on words to chwarae ar eiriau.
Talking about jokes in Welsh in general is a bit more complicated than in English. Though I’ve used the word digrifwch above for humour, this really sounds more like funniness, and some people might use the much more general word hwyl which is usually translated as fun.
These days it’s very common to say jôc for joke but this is obviously a loan word and there’s no native equivalent. If you wanted to avoid jôc, you’d have to use a compound phrase like stori ddigri (funny story) or peth digri (funny thing). Again, the word hwyl can come in handy here. For example, saying you did something for a joke or for a laugh would be most idiomatically translated as o ran hwyl.
At least one thing is universal – we all know that when someone tells you a jôc or mwysair it’s polite to chwerthin (laugh) whether or not it’s doniol (funny)!
