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Indo-European Lexicon

PIE Etymon and IE Reflexes

Below we display: a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) etymon adapted from Pokorny, with our own English gloss; our Semantic Field assignment(s) for the etymon, linked to information about the field(s); an optional Comment; and Reflexes (derived words) in various Indo-European languages, organized by family/group in west-to-east order where Germanic is split into West/North/East families and English, our language of primary emphasis, is artificially separated from West Germanic. IE Reflexes appear most often as single words with any optional letter(s) enclosed in parentheses; but alternative full spellings are separated by '/' and "principal parts" appear in a standard order (e.g. masculine, feminine, and neuter forms) separated by commas.

Reflexes are annotated with: Part-of-Speech and/or other Grammatical feature(s); a short Gloss which, especially for modern English reflexes, may be confined to the oldest sense; and some Source citation(s) with 'LRC' always understood as editor. Keys to PoS/Gram feature abbreviations and Source codes appear below the reflexes; at the end are links to the previous/next etyma [in Pokorny's alphabetic order] that have reflexes.

All reflex pages are currently under active construction; as time goes on, corrections may be made and/or more etyma & reflexes may be added.

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Pokorny Etymon: 2. gher- 'to gash, slit, scrape, scratch'

Semantic Fields: to Cut; to Rub

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Middle English:	caracter	n	character	W7
	garsen	vb	to gash	W7
English:	characin	n	small brightly-colored tropical fish	AHD/W7
	character	n	graphic mark/device on object indicating origin/ownership/relationship	AHD/W7
	gash	vb	to make long deep cut	AHD/W7
Italic
Latin:	character	n.masc	character, distinctive quality	W7
Vulgar Latin:	charisso, charissare	vb	to engrave	W7
Old North French:	garser	vb	to gash, scratch, engrave	W7
Middle French:	caractère	n.masc	personality, type	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	zeriù, zerti	vb	to rake, scratch out	RPN
Albanian
Albanian:	karakter	n.masc	character, distinctive quality	LRC
Hellenic
Greek:	charakter	n.masc	personality, distinctive mark, figure on coinage	W7
	charax	n.masc/fem	pointed stake; fish	W7
	charássô	vb	to cut, engrave, scratch	RPN

Key to Part-of-Speech/Grammatical feature abbreviations:

Abbrev.		Meaning
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
vb	=	verb

Key to information Source codes (always with 'LRC' as editor):

Code		Citation
AHD	=	Calvert Watkins: The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd ed. (2000)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
RPN	=	Allan R. Bomhard: Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic (2002)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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