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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 with Unicode^® support, but fonts for only the Unicode 2.0 character set (including combining diacritics). Versions of this page rendered in alternate character sets are available via links (see Unicode 3 and ISO-8859-1) in the left margin.

Pokorny Etymon: agh- 'to ail, fear, be depressed'

Semantic Fields: Fear, Fright; Sad

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	ad-āgor	vb.1.sg	I fear	GED
	āigthiu	vb.ua.n	terror	GED
	āl	adj	fearful	GED
English
Old English:	æge/e(i)ge	n.masc	awe, terror; sorrow	ASD/GED
	eg(e)sa/ægsa/ege	n.masc	awe, fear, terror	GED/ASD/CDC
	eglan	vb.wk	to ail, afflict	W7/ASD
	egle	adj	horrid, hateful, loathsome, troublesome	AHD/ASD
	eglian/elan	vb.wk	to ail, pain, grieve, trouble	GED/ASD
	ōga	n.masc	fright	GED
	ōht	n.str.fem	persecution	GED
	on-œgan	vb.wk	to fear	GED
Middle English:	aw(e)/agh(e)/aze	n	awe	W7/CDC
	eghe/eye/ay(e)/eze	n	fear	CDC
	eilen	vb	to ail	W7
English:	ail	vb	to give/suffer pain/unhealth	AHD/W7
	awe	n	dread, profound/reverent fear	AHD/W7
	Óin	prop.n	dwarf in Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings	LRC
W-Germanic
Old Saxon:	egiso	n.masc	awe, terror	GED
Middle Low German:	achte	n.str.fem	persecution	GED
	egelen	vb	to annoy	W7
Old High German:	agis/egis	n.neut	horror	ASD
	agi(so)	n.masc	awe, fear, terror	ASD/GED
	āhta	n.str.fem	persecution	GED
	akī	n.fem	awe, terror	GED
	egī	n.fem	awe, terror	GED
	egisa	n.fem	awe, terror	GED
	egis-līh	adj	awful, terrible	GED
	egiso/ekiso	n.masc	awe, terror	GED/ASD
Middle High German:	ege	n.fem	awe, terror	ASD
	egese/eise	n.fem	horror	ASD
German:	ekeln	vb	to ail, trouble; be disgusted	ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	agi	n	awe	AHD/W7
	ōgn	n.fem	awe, fright, terror	GED
	Óin	prop.n	Oin (Lay of Regin dwarf)	TPE
	ótti	n.masc	fear, dread	LRC
Old Icelandic:	agi	n.masc	awe, terror; discipline	GED/ASD
	ōast	vb.wk	to be afraid	GED
	œgishjālmr	n	fearful helmet (transformed Fafnir into dragon)	GED
	œgja	vb.wk	to frighten	GED
Icelandic:	agi	n.masc	terror; discipline	ASD
Norwegian:	egse	n.neut	agitation	GED
Danish:	ave	n.masc/fem	awe, terror; discipline	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	*af-agjan	vb.wk.I	to move, frighten	GED
	*-agan	vb.ptpr.VI	to fear	GED
	agei	n.fem	awe, terror	ASD
	agis	n.str.neut	awe, fear, terror	GED
	*agls	adj	disgraceful	GED
	aglyan	vb	to molest	ASD
	*ogan	vb.ptpr	to fear	GED
	un-agein	adv	fearlessly	GED
	usagjan	vb.wk.I	to frighten, terrify	GED
Hellenic
Greek:	ʼάχνυμαι	vb	to mourn, be troubled	GED
	ʼάχομαι	vb	to mourn, be sad	GED
	ʼάχος	n	pain, sorrow	GED
	achos	n.neut	pain	W7
	ʼάχυμαι	vb	to mourn, be sad	GED
	ʼόις	n	snake	GED
Indic
Sanskrit:	áhiṣ	n	snake	GED

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
1	=	1st person
I	=	class 1
VI	=	class 6
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
ptpr	=	preterite-present (verb)
sg	=	singular (number)
str	=	strong (inflection)
ua	=	used as
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)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
GED	=	Winfred P. Lehmann: A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (1986)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
TPE	=	Lee M. Hollander: The Poetic Edda (1962)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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