Other forms: ceilidhs
A ceilidh is a social evening of traditional music and dancing. Go to a ceilidh, a ceilidh band, dance at the ceilidh.
The steps are called out as you go, which is the point of it: nobody is expected to know them. The word is Gaelic and is said as kay-lee, which is the spelling most people need explaining once.
1nounceilidhA social evening of traditional music and dancing.
“After the wedding dinner, there was a ceilidh with a fiddle band and lots of dancing.”
ceilidh is a gathering.
Scottish Gaelic ceilidh means a visit or social gathering.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱey- — to settle
Proto-Celtic
*kēiliyos — companion; servant
Old Irish
célide — social call, visit
Irish
célidhe
Scottish Gaelic
cèilidh — a pilgrimage; a social call, visit; a sojourn; a social gathering with dancing, etc., ceilidh
English, today
ceilidh
Built from
The noun is borrowed from Scottish Gaelic cèilidh (“a pilgrimage; a social call, visit; a sojourn; a social gathering with dancing, etc., ceilidh”) and Irish célidhe archaic, céilí (“a social call, visit; a social gathering with dancing, etc., ceilidh”), both from Old Irish célide (“social call, visit”), from céile (“companion, fellow; neighbour”) (ultimately from Proto-Celtic kēiliyos (“companion; servant”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European ḱey- (“to settle”)) + -ide. The plural form ceilidhean is borrowed from Scottish Gaelic cèilidhean. The verb is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA