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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.

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: (s)plei- 'to cut, split'

Semantic Fields: to Cut; to Split

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	flint	n.masc	flint	W7
Middle English:	flendris	n.pl	flinders	W7
	flint	n	flint	W7
	splint	n	splint	W7
	splinter	n	splinter	W7
English:	flense	vb.trans	to strip off (skin/blubber)	AHD/W7
	flinders	n.pl	fragments, splinters	AHD/W7
	flint	n	massive hard quartz	AHD/W7
	splent	n	chip, shaving, splinter, fragment	IEW
	splice	vb.trans	to unite (e.g. ropes) by interweaving strands	AHD/W7
	splint	n	small plate/strip of wood/metal	AHD/W7
	splinter	n	sliver, thin piece split off lengthwise	AHD/W7
	split, split	vb.anom	to divide along grain/seam/layer	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Middle Dutch:	splitten	vb	to split	W7
Dutch:	flensen	vb	to flense	W7
	splissen	vb	to splice	W7
Middle Low German:	splente/splinte	n	splint	W7
Old High German:	flins	n	pebble, hard stone	W7
	spaltan	vb	to split	W7
Middle High German:	vlins	n.masc	flint	ASD
German:	Flint	n.masc	flint	LRC
	spalten	vb	to split	LRC
	spleissen	vb	to splice	LRC
	Splitter	n.masc	splinter	LRC
N-Germanic
Danish:	flint	n.masc/fem	flint	ASD
Swedish:	flinta	n.fem	flint	ASD

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
anom	=	anomalous/indeclinable
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
pl	=	plural (number)
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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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