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The word tánaiste, anglicized as “tanist,” refers to the candidate who, by the Gaelic method of succession, was recognized as next in line to rule a lordship or kingdom, and was so designated during the ruler’s lifetime: literally, “second to the chief.” By choosing a tanist, Gaelic lineages were able to avoid the turmoil that would accompany succession by a minor. In its original Old Irish form it meant “the expected one,” which, within a few centuries, merged in meaning with the Latin secundus. Recent scholarship has disputed the suggestion that it was equivalent to the early medieval terms ádbar ríg and rígdamna (the former meaning worthy and eligible, the latter referring to the head of the main dynastic segment not in actual power). However, the fact that during later medieval times annalists sometimes separately described certain known tánaistigh as ádhbhar ríogh or ríoghdhamhna shows that the terms became interchangeable to some extent.