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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: nek- 'death, dying, necrosis; corpse'

Semantic Fields: to Die; Dead; Death; Corpse, Body

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Middle English:	innocent	adj	innocent	W7
	nigromancie	n	necromancy, magic	W7
	nocent	adj	nocent, guilty, criminal	W7
	nusaunce	n	nuisance	W7
English:	innocent	adj	blameless, free from sin/guilt	AHD/W7
	innocuous	adj	harmless, causing no injury	AHD/W7
	internecine	adj	deadly, marked by slaughter	AHD/W7
	necr(o)-	pfx	dead, death	AHD/W7
	Necromancer	prop.n	Sauron in Tolkien: The Hobbit	LRC
	necromancy	n	conjuration of/divination re: dead spirits	AHD/W7
	necrosis	n	(localized) tissue death	AHD/W7
	nectar	n	drink of Greek/Roman gods	AHD/W7
	nectarine	n	aromatic peach with smooth waxy skin	AHD
	nocent	adj	harmful	AHD/W7
	nocuous	adj	harmful, likely to cause injury	AHD/W7
	noxious	adj	harmful, destructive	AHD/W7
	nuisance	n	annoyance, injury	AHD/W7
	obnoxious	adj	susceptible to hurtful influence	AHD/W7
	pernicious	adj	deadly, highly destructive/injurious	AHD/W7
Italic
Latin:	innocens, innocentis	adj	innocent, having no harmful intent	W7
	innocuus	adj	harmless	W7
	internecinus	adj	leading to massacre	W7
	interneco, internecare	vb	to kill, destroy	W7
	neco, necare	vb	to kill	W7
	nectar	n.neut	nectar	W7
	nex, necis	n.fem	violent death	W7
	nocens, nocentis	adj	wicked	W7
	noceo, nocere	vb	to harm	W7
	nocuus	adj	hurtful	W7
	noxa	n.fem	harm	W7
	noxius	adj	harmful	W7
	obnoxius	adj	liable, guilty	W7
	pernicies	n.fem	destruction	W7
	perniciosus	adj	dangerous, treacherous	W7
Late Latin:	necromantia	n.fem	necromancy	W7
	necrosis	n.fem	death of living tissue	W7
Medieval Latin:	nigromantia	n.fem	necromancy	W7
Old French:	nuisir	vb	to harm	W7
Anglo-French:	nusaunce	n.fem	nuisance	W7
Middle French:	innocent	adj	innocent	W7
	nigromancie	n.fem	necromancy	W7
French:	pernicieux	adj	rampant, subtle, treacherous	W7
Hellenic
Greek:	nekrós	n.masc	corpse	LRC
	nekrow	vb	to make dead	W7
	nekrosis	n.fem	necrosis	W7
	nektar	n.neut	nectar	W7
Late Greek:	nekromanteia	n.fem	necromancy	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pfx	=	prefix
prop	=	proper
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
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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