Look up sláinte in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Sláinte means "health"[1] in both Irish and Scottish Gaelic. It is commonly used as a drinking toast in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. However, the toast is also increasingly being used in other countries within the whisky community.[2]
Sláinte is the basic form in Irish. Variations of this toast include sláinte mhaith "good health" in Irish (mhaith being the lenited form of maith "good"). In Irish, the response to sláinte is sláinte agatsa, which translates "to your health as well".
The basic Scottish Gaelic equivalent is slàinte (mhath), with the same meaning, to which the normal response is do dheagh shlàinte "your good health".[6] There are other variations such as:
air do shlàinte "on your health!" with the response slàinte agad-sa "health at yourself!"[7]
slàinte mhòr "great health" which is also used as a Jacobite toast with the alternative meaning of "health to Marion", Marion (Mòr) being a Jacobite code name for Prince Charles Edward Stuart.[8]
The Manx Gaelic form is slaynt (vie)[9] or shoh slaynt.[10] Alternatively, corp slaynt "healthy body" is also used in Manx.[5]
In some modern Romance languages, words descended from the Latin word salus (such as salute in Italian, salut in Catalan and Romanian, salud in Spanish) are similarly used as a toast. (However, sănătate in Romanian, santat in Occitan and santé in French are from Latin sanitas "health.")
