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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: albho- 'white, albino'

Semantic Field: White

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	ælf, ylfe	n.masc	elf, elves	W7
	ælfen/elfen/elven	n.fem	female elf	OED
	ælf-scīene/ælf-scīeno	adj	beautiful, of elfin beauty	ASD
	albe	n	alb	W7/ASD
Middle English:	albe	n	alb	W7
	alfe, alvene	n	elf, elves	CDC
	auborne/auburne/awburne	adj	auburn	W7/CDC
	dauben	vb	to daub	W7
	elf(e), elvene	n	elf, elves	CDC
	elven	adj	elven	LRC
English:	abele	n	white poplar	AHD/W7
	alb	n	white garment (worn at Eucharist)	AHD/W7
	albedo	n	reflected lustre	AHD/W7
	albescent	adj	becoming white	AHD
	albino	adj/n	(organism) lacking genetic pigment	AHD/W7
	albite	n	kind of feldspar	AHD/W7
	album	n	blank notebook; musical record	AHD/W7
	albumen	n	egg white	AHD/W7
	aubade	n	dawn song, morning song	AHD/W7
	auburn	adj	blond, flaxen; reddish-brown	AHD/W7
	daub	vb	to plaster, crudely spread	AHD/W7
	elf, elfs/elves	n	sprite, fairy, incubus	AHD/W7
	Elfhelm	prop.n	Rohan marshal in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	elfin/elven	adj	re: elves	LRC
	Elfstan	prop.n	hobbit in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Elfstone	prop.n	a.k.a. Aragorn in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Elfwine	prop.n	19th Rohan king in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Elven	prop.adj	re: Elves in Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Elvish	prop.adj	re: Elves in Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Gandalf	prop.n	grey/white wizard in Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Halfelven	prop.n	Elrond surname in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	oaf	n	fool, dullard	AHD/W7
	Oberon	prop.n	fairy king (medieval folklore)	LRC
	Oliver	prop.n	comrade of Roland, paladin of Charlemagne	LRC
W-Germanic
Old Dutch:	alf	n.masc	elf	ASD
Dutch:	abeel	n	white poplar	W7
	elf	n.masc	elf	CDC
Middle Low German:	alf	n.masc	elf	CDC
Low German:	elf	n.masc	elf	CDC
Old High German:	alp	n.masc	elf	CDC
Middle High German:	alb/alf/alp, elbe	n.masc	elf, elves	CDC/ASD
German:	Alb	n.masc	elf	CDC
	Albino	n.masc	albino	LRC
	Alm/Alp	n.fem	alpine pasture	LRC
	Alp	n.masc	elf, demon; nightmare	CDC
	Elf/Elfe	n.masc/fem	elf, goblin	CDC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	alfr	n.masc	elf	ASD
	Álfr	prop.n.masc	Alf (an elf)	LRC
	Gandálfr	prop.n.masc	Gandalf (Voluspa dwarf)	TPE
	gandálfr	n.masc	wizard, lit. staff-elf	LRC
Danish:	alf/elv	n.masc	elf	CDC
Swedish:	albit	n	albite	W7
	alf/elfva	n.masc/fem	elf	CDC
Italic
Latin:	albesco, albescere	vb	to become white	AHD
	alburnus	adj	whitish	AHD
	albus, alba, album	adj	white	LRC
Vulgar Latin:	alba	n.fem	dawn	W7
Late Latin:	albedo	n.fem	whiteness	W7
Middle Latin:	alburnus	adj	auburn, whitish	CDC
Medieval Latin:	alba	n.fem	white garment worn at the Eucharist	W7
	albellus	n.dim	white (color)	AHD
	alburnus	adj	whitish	W7
Portuguese:	albino	adj	albino	W7
Spanish:	albada	n	aubade	CDC
	albo	adj	white	W7
Old French:	albade	n	aubade	AHD
	Auberon	n.masc	Oberon	W7
	auborne/alborne	adj	auburn	CDC
	dauber	vb	to coat, plaster	W7
Old North French:	abiel	adj	white	W7
Middle French:	auborne	adj	blond	W7
French:	aubade	n.fem	aubade	W7
	Oliver	n.masc	Oliver [man's name]	W7
Old Provençal:	alba/auba	n.fem	dawn	W7
	aubada	n.fem	aubade	W7
Italian:	alburno	adj	auburn	CDC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
dim	=	diminutive
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
prop	=	proper
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)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
OED	=	James A.H. Murray et al: The Oxford English Dictionary (1933)
TPE	=	Lee M. Hollander: The Poetic Edda (1962)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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