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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.

Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings may appreciate the source & meaning tips that pop up when the mouse pointer hovers over a non-obvious word or name that he coined from Indo-European (usually Old English or Old Norse) stock. But only reflexes of PIE etyma can be included, and these tend to concentrate in the vocabulary of Rohan and the Shire.

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: 3. leig-, loig- 'to hop, jump, tremble'

Semantic Field: to Jump, Leap

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	lac	n	state, activity; play, sport, trick	IEW/ASD
	lacan	vb	to play, trick; swing, wave about	ASD
	lawerce	n.fem	lark (laverock)	W7/ASD
	wedlac	n	marriage bond	W7
Middle English:	dweomerla(i)k	n	demerlayk, legerdemain, sleight-of-hand	LRC
	lark	n	lark	W7
	leik	n	game, sport, contest; trick	MED
	leiken	vb	to play, trifle; trick, betray, beguile, deceive	MED
	wedlok	n	wedlock	W7
English:	demerlayk	n	magic, witchcraft, sorcery, occult art/practice	OED
	dwimmerlaik	n	Eowyn's epithet for Nazgul Lord in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	lark	n	singing bird of Europe/Asia/north Africa	AHD/W7
	wedlock	n	matrimony, (state of) marriage	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old High German:	lerihha/lerahha	n	lark	W7/ASD
Middle High German:	leichen	vb	to play	ASD
	lerche	n	lark (laverock)	ASD
German:	Lerche	n	lark (laverock)	ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	leikr	n.masc	play, game, sport, action; scorn, mockery, derision	IEW/ICE
Old Icelandic:	leika	vb	to play, trick, delude; move, swing, wave	ASD/ICE
Icelandic:	lævirki	n	lark (laverock)	ASD
Danish:	lege	vb	to play, trick, delude	ICE
Swedish:	leka	vb	to play, trick, delude	ICE
E-Germanic
Gothic:	laikan	vb	to play	ASD

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)
ASD	=	Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller: An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898)
ICE	=	Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson: An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874)
IEW	=	Julius Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
MED	=	Robert E. Lewis et al., eds. Middle English Dictionary (1954-1999, 2001)
OED	=	James A.H. Murray et al: The Oxford English Dictionary (1933)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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