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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. (s)mei-, smeu- 'to smile'

Semantic Field: to Laugh, Smile

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	sme(a)rcian	vb.wk	to smirk, smile	W7/ASD
	smerian	vb	to laugh	W7
Middle English:	mervel	n	marvel	W7
	miracle	n	miracle	W7
	mirour	n	mirror	W7
	smilen	vb	to smile	W7
	smirken	vb	to smirk	W7
English:	admire	vb.trans	to marvel at	AHD/W7
	comity	n	courteous code of behavior	AHD/W7
	marvel	n	something causing wonder/astonishment	AHD/W7
	miracle	n	extraordinary event manifesting God's supernatural work	AHD/W7
	mirage	n	optical reflection from heated air near ground	AHD/W7
	mirror	n	smooth/polished substance (e.g. glass) that reflects images	AHD/W7
	Mirrormere	prop.n	glassy lake in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	smile	vb	to show pleasure/amusement via facial expression	AHD/W7
	smirk	vb.intrans	to simper, smile in affected manner	AHD/W7
Italic
Old Latin:	cosmis	adj	courteous	W7
Latin:	admiror, admirari	vb	to admire	W7
	comis	adj	courteous	W7
	comitas, comitatis	n.fem	courtesy, friendliness	W7
	mirabilia	n.neut.pl	marvels	W7
	mirabilis	adj	wonderful	W7
	miraculum	n.neut	marvel	W7
	miror, mirari	vb.dep	to wonder	W7
Old French:	amirer	vb	to admire	AHD
	merveille	n.fem	marvel	W7
	miracle	n.masc	miracle	W7
	mirer	vb	to look at oneself	W7
	mirour	n.masc	mirror	W7
Middle French:	admirer	vb	to admire	W7
French:	admirer	vb	to admire	AHD
	mirage	n.masc	mirage	W7
	mirer	vb	to see in a mirror	W7
Baltic
Latvian:	smieties, smejos, smejos	vb	to laugh	LRC
Indic
Sanskrit:	smayate	vb	to smile	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
dep	=	deponent
fem	=	feminine (gender)
intrans	=	intransitive
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pl	=	plural (number)
prop	=	proper
trans	=	transitive
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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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