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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: 4. uel-, uelu- 'wool, hair; grass, wold, forest'

Semantic Fields: Wool; Hair; Grass; Woods, Forest

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Welsh:	gwlan	n	wool	LRC
	gwyllt	adj	wild, mad	W7
English
Old English:	weald	adj	mighty, powerful	ASD
	wilde	adj	wild, untamed	LRC
	wold	n.str.masc	wold: forest	OED
	wull	n.fem	wool	W7
West Saxon:	weald	n.masc	weald: forest	W7
Anglian:	wald	n.masc	wold: forest	ODE
Middle English:	flaunneol	n	flannel, woolen cloth/garment	W7
	laner	n	lanner	W7
	wald/wold	n	wold: forest	W7
	welde	n	weld	W7
	wilde	adj	wild	W7
	wolle	n	wool	W7
English:	flannel	n	soft twilled wool/worsted napped fabric	AHD/W7
	lanate	adj	woolly, covered with fine hair/filaments	AHD/W7
	lanner	n	falcon	AHD/W7
	lanolin	n	wool grease	AHD/W7
	lanugo	n	dense downy/cottony growth	AHD/W7
	Thistlewool	prop.n	Bree surname in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	ulotrichous	adj	having crisp/woolly hair	AHD/W7
	vellus	n	fine bodily hair preceding puberty	AHD
	vole	n	small rodent (related to lemmings)	AHD/W7
	Walda	prop.n	12th Rohan king in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	weald	n	wood, forest, woodland	AHD
	weld	n	European mignonette (flowery herb)	AHD/W7
	wild	adj	untamed, undomesticated, living in natural state	AHD/W7
	wildebeest	n	gnu: large African antelope with ox-like horns	AHD/W7
	Wilderland	prop.n	wilderness area in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	wilderness	n	uncultivated uninhabited tract/region of land	AHD/W7
	Wold	prop.n	Rohan plain in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	wold	n	wood, forest; upland plain	AHD/W7
	wool	n	soft wavy/curly undercoat of (e.g.) sheep	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	wald	n.masc	wold: forest	ODE/ASD
	wilde	adj	wild	ASD
Dutch:	wol	n	wool	TLL
	woud	n	wold: forest	ODE
Afrikaans:	wildebees	n	wildebeest, lit. wild ox	W7
Old Saxon:	ala-waldo/alo-waldo	adj	mighty, powerful	ASD
	wald	n.masc	wold: forest	ODE/ASD
Old Low German:	wildi	adj	wild	ASD
Middle Low German:	wolde	n	weld	W7
Old High German:	al-walto	adj	mighty, powerful	ASD
	wald/walt	n.masc	wold: forest	W7/ASD
	wildi	adj	wild	W7
	wolla	n.fem	wool	W7/ASD
German:	Wald	n.masc	wold: forest	LRC
	wild	adj	wild	LRC
	Wolle	n.fem	wool	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	villr	adj	wild, astray	LRC
	vollr	n.masc	wold, untilled field	ODE
Icelandic:	ull	n.fem	wool	ASD
	villr	adj	wild	ASD
	völlr	n.masc	wold: plain, field	ASD
Danish:	uld	n	wool	TLL
Swedish:	ull	n	wool	TLL
	vild	adj	wild	TLL
E-Germanic
Gothic:	wilþeis	adj	wild	ASD
	wulla/wolla	n.fem	wool	ASD
Italic
Latin:	lana	n.fem	wool	W7
	lanatus	adj	woolen	W7
	lanugo	n.fem	wool; cocoon	W7
	vellus	n.neut	fleece	W7
Middle French:	lanier	n.masc	lanner	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	vluna	n	wool	LRC
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	vlasu'	n.masc	hair	LRC
Hellenic
Homeric Greek:	eilúô	vb	to roll, wrap, enfold	LS
	oûlos	adj	woolen, woolly	LRC
Greek:	lênos	n.neut	wool	LRC
Anatolian
Hittite:	hulana-	n	wool	LRC
Iranian
Avestan:	varna	n	wool	LRC
Indic
Sanskrit:	urfa	n	wool	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
str	=	strong (inflection)
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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
LS	=	Liddell and Scott: Greek-English Lexicon, 7th-9th ed's (1882-1940), rev.
ODE	=	C.T. Onions: The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1966)
OED	=	James A.H. Murray et al: The Oxford English Dictionary (1933)
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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