my advice avails to thee’ i.e. my a. is worth little. Pa obeith yssyẟ ẏ’r porthmyn? Ychydic Ỻ.A. 40 ‘what hope is there for the merchants? A little’. ychydig o nifer Ezec. v 3; ychydig o honaw Job iv 12.
(2) Adj. ychydig [soft] sg. ‘a little’, pl. ‘a few’.
ychydig gysgu, ychydig hepian, etc. Diar. vi 10; ychydig win 1 Tim. v 23.—ychydig bechodau T.A. c 16/13 ‘a few sins’; ychydig ddyddiau Gen. xxix 20; ychydig bethau Dat. ii 14.
(3) ychydig is for fychydig mut. of bychydic: W. bychod ‘small quantity’, bychodedd ‘scarcity, poverty’; Corn. boches ‘a little’, bochesog, bochodoc ‘poor’, Ir. bocht ‘poor’: *buk-so‑t‑, *buk-to‑: with Kelt, b- for *p- to Lat. paucus? § 101 iii (2).
(4) Subst. odid ‘a rarity’.
odit a vo molediw r.p. 1041 ‘a rarity [is he] who is worthy of praise’; ac odit o’r r͑ei hynny ysyẟ yn gristonogyon Ỻ.A. 165 “quarum paucae [lit. paucitas] sunt Christianae”; odid elw heb antur prov. ‘a rarity [is] (i.e. there is rarely) profit without enterprise’.
ond odid ‘probably’, literally ‘excepting a rarity’.
(5) odid: Lat. paucus, E. few § 76 ii (3).
vi. (1) Adj. aml [soft] sg. ‘many a’, pl. ‘many’; ambell [soft] ‘an occasional’.
- Aml iawn waedd am Elin wen,
- Ami eisiau am elusen.—T.A., c. ii 83.
‘Full many a cry for fair Elin, many a need for charity.’
- Ond o hirbell ymgellwair
- (O bai well ym) ymbell air.—I.D. 23.
‘But from afar bantering (if it were better for me) an occasional word.’
y mae rhai a graffant ar ymbell air M.K. [vii] ‘there are some who will look at an occasional word’. Aml ddrygau Ps. xxxiv 19, dy aml drugareddau di Dan. ix 18; ambell dro ‘occasionally’.
The dialectal i sometimes heard before the noun is a recent intrusion (? corruption of iawn as in the first example).
Both these words are used as ordinary adjectives, and are compared; see Silvan Evans s.vv.
(2) aml < Brit *amb’lu‑s for *ambilus < *m̥bhi-(p)lu‑, with *plu- for *pₑlu‑: W. llawer ‘many’, Gk. πολύς, see ii (3) above.
ambell < *ambi-pell- ‘mutually far’; for the prefix see § 156 i (4) (b); for the stem § 89 i.
§ 170. i. Subst. neb ‘any one’, dim ‘anything’, are used chiefly with negatives; as ni welais neb ‘I did not see anybody’;
