The University of Texas at Austin; College of Liberal Arts

Hans C. Boas, Director :: PCL 5.556, 1 University Station S5490 :: Austin, TX 78712 :: 512-471-4566

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: uidhu- 'tree, wood'

Semantic Fields: Tree, Oak; Wood, Timber

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	fid	n	tree	W7
English
Old English:	gar-wudu	n.masc	javelin, lit. spear-wood	ASD
	wudu/wi(o)du	n.masc	wood	ASD
	wudu-wasa	n.masc	woodwose	ASD
Middle English:	wode	n	wood	W7
	woodwose	n	woodwose	OED
English:	Chetwood	prop.n	Bree woods in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Entwood	prop.n	a.k.a. Fangorn Forest in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Firienwood	prop.n	White Mountains forest in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Greenwood	prop.n	Mirkwood's former name in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Mirkwood	prop.n	gloomy forest in Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	silva	n	forest trees	W7
	silvan/sylvan	adj	in woods/forest, re: silva	W7
	Watchwood	prop.n	vigilant forest in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	wood	n	material from tree; forest, dense growth of trees	AHD/W7
	Woodhall	prop.n	Shire village in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Woodland	prop.n	Sylvan Elves' realm in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Woodmen	prop.n.pl	Mirkwood dwellers in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	woodwose	n	faun, satyr; wild woodsman	OED
W-Germanic
Old High German:	witu	n.masc	wood	W7/ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	viðr	n.masc	wood, beam; tree, forest	LRC
Old Icelandic:	Myrk-viðr	prop.n.masc	east Europe forest, lit. Murk-wood	LRC
Icelandic:	viðr	n.masc	wood, tree	ASD
Swedish:	ved	n	wood	TLL
Italic
Latin:	silva	n.fem	wood, grove, forest, silva	IEW/CLD

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
pl	=	plural (number)
prop	=	proper

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)
CLD	=	Cassell's Latin Dictionary (1959, rev. 1968)
IEW	=	Julius Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
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)

Nearby etyma: previous | next