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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: 1. rei- 'to cut, reap, rive, tear, scratch'

Semantic Fields: to Cut; to Tear; to Rub

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	ræw/raw	n.fem	row, line	ASD
	rap	n.masc	rope	ASD
	re(o)pan/ripan	vb.str	to reap	ASD
	ripe	adj	ripe	W7
	ryfe/rife	adj	rife	W7/ASD
Middle English:	ariven/arryven	vb	to arrive	W7/MEV
	rawe	n	row	W7
	repen	vb	to reap	W7
	rift	n	rift	W7
	ripe	adj	ripe	W7
	ripelen	vb	to ripple	IEW
	riven	vb	to rive	W7
	rivere	n	river	W7
	rope	n	rope	W7
	ryfe	adj	rife	W7
English:	arrive	vb.intrans	to reach destination	AHD/W7
	Orcrist	prop.n	sword (Goblin-Cleaver) in Tolkien: The Hobbit	LRC
	reap	vb	to cut with scythe/sickle	AHD/W7
	rife	adj	widespread, abundant, prevalent	AHD/W7
	rift	n	fissure, crevasse	AHD/W7
	rigatoni	n	short curved fluted pieces of macaroni	AHD/W7
	rimose	adj	having numerous clefts/cracks/fissures	AHD/W7
	riparian	adj	re: location on bank of natural watercourse	AHD/W7
	ripe	adj	mature, fully grown/developed	AHD/W7
	ripple	vb	to become ruffled/covered with small waves	IEW/W7
	rist	vb	to slash, wound; mark, scratch, engrave	W2I
	rivage	n	bank, shore, coast	AHD
	rive	vb	to rend, cleave, tear apart	AHD/W7
	Rivendell	prop.n	elven refuge in Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	river	n	large natural stream of water	AHD/W7
	rope	n	stout cord of wire/fiber strands twisted/braided together	AHD/W7
	row	n	set of objects in line/series/sequence	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Dutch:	rivier	n	river	TLL
Old Saxon:	ripi	adj	ripe	ASD
Middle Low German:	risten	vb	to carve, engrave	IEW
Old High German:	reif	n.masc	rope	ASD
	rifi	adj	ripe	ASD
	riga	n	line	W7
German:	reif	adj	ripe	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	rifa	vb	to rive	W7
	rifr	adj	rife	W7
	rista	vb.str	to cut, slash, carve, slice	W2I/IEW/ICE
Old Icelandic:	rista	vb.wk	to cut, slash, carve, slice	IEW/ICE
Icelandic:	reip	n.neut	rope	ASD
	rif-ligr	adj	large, munificent	ASD
Norwegian:	rift	n	rift, scratch	W7/NED
Danish:	riste	vb	to cut, slash, carve	ICE
Old Swedish:	rista	vb	to carve/engrave (runes)	IEW
E-Germanic
Gothic:	raip	n.neut	rope	ASD
Italic
Latin:	rima	n.fem	slit, crack	W7
	rimosus	adj	slit, cracked	W7
	ripa	n.fem	riverbank, seashore	W7
	riparia	n.fem	shore	W7
	riparius	adj	riparian, re: shore	W7
Vulgar Latin:	arripo, arripare	vb	to come to shore	W7
	riparia	n.fem	shore	W7
Old French:	ar(r)iver	vb	to arrive	W7/MEV
	rivere	n.fem	bank, shore	W7
Italian:	rigare	vb	to furrow, flute	W7
	rigato	vb.ptc	fluted, furrowed	W7
Hellenic
Greek:	ereipein	vb	to tear down	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
intrans	=	intransitive
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
ptc	=	participle
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)
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
MEV	=	J.R.R. Tolkien: A Middle English Vocabulary (1922)
NED	=	Einar Haugen: Norwegian-English Dictionary (1965)
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)

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