Celtomaniacadj.n.
/ˌkɛltə(ʊ)ˈmeɪnɪak/, /ˌsɛltə(ʊ)ˈmeɪnɪak/, U.S. /ˌkɛltoʊˈmeɪniˌæk/, /ˌsɛltoʊˈmeɪniˌæk/ depreciative.
A. adj.
Relating to, characterized by, or demonstrating Celtomania (Celtomania n.); typical of the ideas or behaviour of a Celtomaniac (see sense B.).
ΚΠ
1854 G. R. Gliddon in J. C. Nott & G. R. Gliddon Types of Mankind iii. ii. 651 Of Irish or Welsh ‘Indians’ it will be time enough to speak, when their ‘coprolites’..are found, not merely on this continent, but west of the European ‘Ultima Thule’ of established Celto-maniac migrations.
1911 Quarterly Rev. Oct. 430 A school of so-called ‘Celtomaniac’ scholars had arisen, who devoutly studied the megalithic monuments and the remains of Celtic literature.
1989 Antiquaries Jrnl. 69 198 Mérimée, who was a sharp critic of the French celtomaniac tendency.
2020 K. N. Jones HiddenTexts 242 The Celtomaniac comparison with Brittany goes from being non-existent to dominating views of Wales from the post-revolutionary period onwards.
B. n.
A person who has an excessive fascination with or enthusiasm for whatever is Celtic; (originally and chiefly) spec. (a disparaging term for) a scholar who tends to propose Celtic origins for words, languages, peoples, etc., to a degree considered unreasonable (now chiefly historical). Cf. Celtomania n.
ΚΠ
1857 Lit. Gaz. 2 May 141/3 We have in Holtzmann a Germano-maniac, in Mone a Kelto-maniac; names not of our giving, but reciprocally inflicted on the parties themselves by one another.
1883 American 7 6 The Celtomaniac..wanted to identify some American language with the Welsh.
1956 Mod. Lang. Notes 71 280 No one but the most fanatical Celtomaniac will accept such an hypothesis.
2010 Irish Times (Nexis) 8 Feb. 15 A work that, at a stroke, freed the study of Early Irish language and literature from the clutches of Celtomaniacs and Ossianic dilettantes, establishing it for the first time as a field of respectable scientific study.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2022).
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adj.n.1854