Cardiganshire

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A former administrative county on the west coast of Wales, now part of the modern county of Ceredigion, known for its rural landscape and coastline
2. An old Welsh county situated on the western shore of Wales, whose territory now forms part of Ceredigion in the present-day administrative map
3. A historic county in western Wales along Cardigan Bay, abolished in the 1974 local government reorganisation and absorbed into Ceredigion

Etymology: Cardiganshire is a plain compound: the town of Cardigan with the English suffix "-shire," meaning a county. The town's name comes from the Welsh "Ceredigion," the name of the old kingdom and region that the county took over, so the English name is a translation-by-adaptation of the Welsh place rather than a native English coinage. The more interesting thread runs through the Welsh side. Ceredigion takes its name from Ceredig, a figure in early Welsh tradition, and the county has kept that name, though its English form was shaped around the town rather than the older region. Cardigan itself sits at the mouth of the River Teifi on Wales's west coast, which is why a port town came to name a whole county. The word therefore records a shift in emphasis: an ancient regional name in Welsh, reshaped in English around a single town, and then given the standard English county suffix.