Welsh Word of the Day: Tŷ (house)

House in Welsh is tŷ, and the plural form is tai. There is a special plural form for referring to only two houses, which is teiau.

Tŷ comes from the proto-Celtic *tegesa, also meaning house or dwelling. It’s a homophone of the Welsh words ti (informal singular you) and tu, a noun meaning side or edge often used as a preposition.

Tŷ is a pretty universal word in Wales. However, there’s a little more variation when it comes to the word for home, which is more likely to be cartref in the South and adref in the North. Both words often lose their final f to become cartre and adre.

Your cartre might be a tŷ mawr (big house) or a tŷ bychan (small house), but it’s hopefully not a tŷ bach. This literally means small house, but it’s actually always used to mean toilet – one to be aware of!

Aside from size, there are lots of other things that make people’s houses unique – whether they have a tŷ sengl (detached house), tŷ teras (terraced house), or tŷ pâr (semi-detached house), for example. Houses that are deulawr (two-storey) or trillawr (three-storey) tend to be a bit more roomy, but a tŷ unllawr (bungalow) is definitely easier to clean. Other types of houses include a tyddyn (farmhouse), a fflat (flat) a plasty (mansion), a tŷ cyngor (council house), or a bwthyn (cottage).

Here’s how tŷ mutates:

Tŷ is a masculine noun, so it doesn’t mutate after the definite article.

In addition to kinds of houses, the word tŷ is used to describe various types of buildings. On the zoological side, an adardy is an aviary, a llaethdy is a dairy, a lladddy is a slaughterhouse, and a beudy is a cowshed.

There’s no real word for restaurant, because the most common word is simply tŷ bwyta (eating house), and a pub (though there is a word – tafarn) can be referred to as tŷ diod (drink house) or tŷ cwrw (beer house).

The word for hospital, ysbyty, is also derived from tŷ, and a workshop is a gweithdy. Across Wales you will find plenty of charming hotels (gwestai) whose singular form is gwesty. Names of hotels and B&Bs in Wales often start with Tŷ – my personal favourite example being Tŷ Morgan, which is a very charming little hotel in Rhaeadr where my wife and I stayed after getting married.

Let’s take a look at the most common verbs you might want to use with tŷ.

• cadw tŷ / trin tŷ = to keep house
• codi tŷ = to build a house (literally: raise a house)
• byw mewn tŷ = to live in a house
• adelaidu tŷ = to build a house
• gwerthu tŷ = to sell a house
• torri tŷ = to break into a house
• gosod trefn ar eich tŷ = to put your house in order

Prynu tŷ (buying a house) may sound like a good idea, but the Welsh will warn you that lleidr yw tŷ (a house is a thief). What’s meant by this is that buying, renovating (adnewyddu) and maintaining (cynnal) a house is likely to cost a lot of money. Sound advice!

What if you’re thinking of getting a tŷ newydd (new house)? To discuss moving house, you can say symud tŷ, which is the literal translation, but it’s more natural to say newid aelwyd (changing hearth). When you are doing this, you’ll have to consider the lleoliad (location), as well as whether your new property has attractive features like a gardd (garden) or croglofft (attic).

There are plenty more expressions deriving from tŷ. Some of these are directly analogous to their English equivalents, like gwraig tŷ (housewife), gwaith tŷ (housework), or ceidwades tŷ (housekeeper). Some are similar but with small differences – like tŷ gwydr (glass house) for greenhouse, or pryfyn tŷ (house insect) for housefly. And some of them are completely different. For example, the Welsh word for dressing gown is gŵn tŷ, or house gown.

Another important use of the word tŷ is in politics. In the United Kingdom, our Senedd (Parliament) is made up of Tŷ’r Arglwyddi (the House of Lords) and Tŷ’r Cyffredin (the House of Commons). In the United States, there is Tŷ’r Cynrychiolwy (the House of Representatives) and, of course, y Tŷ Gwyn (the White House).

There are some fun Welsh idioms about houses. For example, the equivalent of the English joke better out than in is gwell tŷ gwag na thenant gwael. Literally, this means, Better an empty house than a bad tenant!

There is also an expression which means something along the lines of getting above your station, which is mynd yn llond y tŷ (filling up the house).

Another one is o fyw mewn tŷ gwellt, gofala am dy dân. This will be a familiar sentiment to English speakers, because it means When living in a straw house, be careful of your fire. As you’ve probably noticed, it’s equivalent to the idiom People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

The most famous Welsh word derived from tŷ, though, has got to be popty ping. This is a slang word for microwave (which, more formally, is meicrodon), and it comes from the word popty, which means oven. I’ve met a lot of people who only know one word in Welsh, and that word is almost always popty ping!