The University of Texas at Austin; College of Liberal Arts

Hans C. Boas, Director :: PCL 5.556, 1 University Station S5490 :: Austin, TX 78712 :: 512-471-4566

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.

Note: this page is for systems/browsers lacking Unicode^® support, or having less than full Unicode 2.0 font support. Versions of this page rendered in alternate character sets are available via links (see Unicode 3 and Unicode 2) in the left margin.

Pokorny Etymon: g^uena 'wife, queen, woman'

Semantic Fields: Wife; Woman

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	ben	n	woman	GED
Irish:	bean	n	woman	W2I
	bean-sidhe	n	banshee	CDC
Gaelic:	bean	n	woman	W2I
	b(e)an-sith	n.fem	banshee	W7/CDC
English
Old English:	cwen	n.str.fem	queen, wife, woman	GED/ASD
	cwene/cwyne	n.fem	queen, quean, wife, woman	W7/ASD
Middle English:	quene	n	queen	W7
English:	banshee	n	female spirit whose wailing warns family of approaching death (Gaelic folklore)	AHD/W7
	-gyne	n.sfx	woman, female	AHD/W7
	gynecocracy	n	political supremacy of women	AHD/W7
	gynecology	n	study of women's hygiene/diseases	AHD
	gynoecium	n	pistils, aggregate of flower carpels	AHD/W7
	-gynous	adj	re: female(s)	AHD/W7
	quean	n	disreputable woman	AHD/W7
	queen	n	wife/widow of king	AHD/W7
	zenana	n	harem, seraglio	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Dutch:	kween	n.fem	married woman	ASD
Old Saxon:	cwan/cwena	n.fem	wife	ASD
	quan	n.str.fem	queen, wife, woman	GED
Old High German:	quena/chena/chone	n.fem	queen, wife, woman	ASD
Middle High German:	kon(e)	n.fem	wife	ASD
German:	Königin	n.fem	queen	ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	kona	n.fem	queen, wife, woman	LRC
Old Icelandic:	kvan/kvæn	n.str.fem	queen, wife, woman	GED
	kvæna	vb.wk	to make one marry	GED
	u-kvæntr	adj	unmarried	GED
Icelandic:	kona/kuna/kwan/kwæn	n	queen, wife, woman	ASD
Danish:	kone/qwinde	n	wife, woman	ASD
	kvinde	n	woman	TLL
Swedish:	kvinna	n	woman	TLL
	kåna	n.fem	quean, low woman	ASD
	qwinna	n.fem	wife, woman	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	qens	n.fem	queen, wife, woman	GED
	qino	n	woman, female	LRC
Italic
Latin:	gynaeceum	n.neut	women's apartments	W7
New Latin:	gynoecium	n.neut	women's apartments	W7
	-gynus	sfx	of women	W7
Baltic
Old Prussian:	genno	n	woman	GED
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	zena	n.fem	wife, woman	LRC
Russian:	zenà	n	wife	GED
Hellenic
Boeotian:	baná	n	wife, lady	GED
Greek:	gynaikeion	n.neut	gynoecium	W7
	gunaîkes	n.pl	women	GED
	gynaikokratia	n.fem	gynecocracy	W7
	gynaikos	adj	pertaining to women	W7
	gunê	n.fem	wife, woman	LRC
	mnêsteúô	vb	to woo, espouse	LRC
Armenian
Armenian:	kin	n	wife, woman	LRC
Iranian
Avestan:	guna	n	wife, woman	GED
	jaini-	n	woman	GED
	jani-	n	woman	GED
Indic
Sanskrit:	jáni-	n	wife, woman	GED
	jña-	n	goddess, divine female	GED
Hindi:	zanana	n	harem	W7
Tocharian
Tocharian B:	kliye/klyiye	n	woman	GED
	sana	n	wife	GED
Tocharian A:	kuli	n	woman	GED
	säm	n	wife	GED

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pl	=	plural (number)
sfx	=	suffix
str	=	strong (inflection)
vb	=	verb
wk	=	weak (inflection)

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)
ASD	=	Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller: An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
GED	=	Winfred P. Lehmann: A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (1986)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W2I	=	Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed. (1959)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

Nearby etyma: previous | next