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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: slenk-, sleng- 'to turn, wind; creep, slink'

Semantic Fields: to Turn; to Wind, Wrap; to Creep, Crawl

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	slincan	vb.str	to slink, creep	W7/ASD
	slingan	vb.str	to wind, worm, twist	W7/ASD
Middle English:	slingen	vb	to sling	W7
	slinken	vb	to slink	W7
English:	lumbricoid	n	creature resembling earthworm	AHD/W7
	sling, slung	vb.str.trans	to fling, cast forcibly	AHD/W7
	slingshot	n	Y-shaped stick with elastic strap for flinging small stones	AHD
	slink, slunk	vb.str.intrans	to go/move furtively/stealthily	AHD/W7
	Slinker	prop.n	a.k.a. Gollum in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
W-Germanic
Dutch:	slang	n	snake	TLL
Old Saxon:	slango	n	snake	KSW
Old High German:	slango	n	snake	KDW
	slihhan	vb	to slink, creep, crawl	ASD
	slingan	vb	to wind, worm, twist	ASD
German:	Schlange	n	snake	TLL
	schlingen	vb	to wind, twist, weave	ASD
N-Germanic
Icelandic:	slyngva	vb	to wind	ASD
Danish:	slange	n	snake	TLL
Old Swedish:	slinka	vb	to slink, creep	IEW
Italic
Latin:	lumbricus	n.masc	earthworm	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	sliñkti, sleñka, sliñko	vb	to pass, slip	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
intrans	=	intransitive
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
prop	=	proper
str	=	strong (inflection)
trans	=	transitive
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)
IEW	=	Julius Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959)
KDW	=	Gerhard Köbler: Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 4th ed. (1993)
KSW	=	Gerhard Köbler: Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed. (2000)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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