Buckshee
Free, extra, or got for nothing. Used as an adjective ('a buckshee pint') and a noun ('he was in for the buckshee'). Not Irish in origin, but absorbed into Irish use through British Army service before and after partition, and now common in everyday Irish slang.
Etymology
From Persian 'bakhshish' and Arabic-influenced 'baksheesh', a tip or gratuity, picked up by British soldiers in India and the Middle East in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The shortened form 'buckshee' meaning 'free of charge' was firmly established in British military slang by the First World War. Irish soldiers serving in the British Army, and later in Irish regiments after partition, carried the word home; it then spread through the civilian vocabulary of garrison towns and beyond.
In a sentence
"He got the tickets buckshee from a fella at work."
Historical notes
Buckshee is a useful test case for what counts as an Irish word. It is not Irish-derived in any linguistic sense - the trail runs through the British Empire, not through Gaelic Ireland or Ulster Scots. But it is unmistakably part of everyday Irish speech, particularly in border counties and in families with British Army service histories. Including it without flagging its route would mislead; excluding it would miss a word that Irish people genuinely use. The label is: Irish-used, not Irish-derived.
Sources
- Collins English Dictionary, entry buckshee. · dictionary
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry buckshee adj. and n. (from Hindi baksheesh). · dictionary