The word galore was first used in a 1675 diary entry of an Anglican clergyman, when it was spelled gallore. After that, several other spellings, such as gillore, galloure, gilore, gelore, and golore, were attested, with the modern form becoming the norm sometime in the nineteenth century. The term comes from the Irish phrase go leor, which translates to "sufficiently", "enough", or "plenty". The go part of that traces to Old Irish co, meaning "with" (this was often added to make adjectives from other parts of speech), and that, through Proto-Celtic, derives from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction kom, "along". Leor, which also meant "enough", is from Old Irish lour, Proto-Celtic lawaros, and ultimately Proto-Indo-European lehw, meaning "benefit". Literary usage of the word galore peaked in 2009.
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AUTHORHello! I'm Adam Aleksic. This year, I graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Government and Linguistics. There, I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society and wrote a thesis on Serbo-Croatian language policy, magna cum laude. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy philosophy, trivia, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law.
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