Anyone ever hear of using ‘taro’ to mean ‘give’? Or would that not even be close to how it might have been used? (Maybe around Caernarfon or even Aberffraw areas long ago?)
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Geiriadur prifysgol Cymru does list ‘give’ as one of the meanings, but only in the sense of “give a blow/knock/etc to”. I’ve not heard anyone use it to mean ‘give’ in any other sense but then I’ve only been in the North a relatively short time.
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Thanks for looking into it! 
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Taro - to strike someone or something.
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This is so fascinating to hear! I have just taken a beginning class of gwyddeleg and the Irish word for ‘to give’ is tabhair with the bh sounding, to me, like it’s silent. So maybe there’s some older word there with taro that connects with tabhair?
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I guess I remember hearing it used for sure as “to put” as in to put something on the table or put something over there, but I thought I remembered hearing it also as “to give” but I may very well be misremembering it because it was so very long ago.
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It might be a bit far fetched, but “dyro” is used in these contexts. Could you be thinking of that?
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Does that mean “to give”? If so, maybe that’s what I was hearing so very long ago!
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The more I’m looking at “dyro” and saying it, the more I’m thinking that is the word I was looking for, I just didn’t know how to spell it. Would you use it like this, 'Dyro hwnna iddi hi" as opposed to using “rhoi”?
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Yes I think I’ve only ever heard it as an imperative so strictly speaking it doesn’t mean “to give” or “to put” but rather “give” or “put” when talking to a single person. I think it’s basically a form of “rhoi” anyway.
As an example, one of the versions of the Lord’s Prayer goes “Dyro i ni heddiw ein bara beunyddiol”. Obviously this is a different register of the language, but I’ve heard it in more colloquial contexts too.
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Thank you so much for this enlightening bit of information; it’s much appreciated!
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A couple more questions: Is it in common use today in Wales?
Or, would it have been more common in the early 1900’s in parts of North Wales? I’m sure it’s a word my grandmother used and continued to use throughout her life here in the U.S. as part of a small, rather isolated Welsh community. (throughout the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s)
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I’m no authority on such matters. When I said “colloquial contexts”, I really meant I’d heard it a few times in various reasonably recent TV programmes set in North Wales which use naturalistic language, probably one or more of Rownd a Rownd, Talcen Caled or Tipyn o Stad. I can’t remember ever having heard it in real life, but my interactions with real people since becoming reasonably fluent in Welsh have been vastly outweighed by the amount of TV and radio I’ve heard.
Hopefully someone else here will be able to answer the question better than I can.
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