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 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: 1. eis- 'to move rapidly/violently'

Semantic Fields: to Move; Fast, Swift, Quick

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	īren/īse(r)n	n.neut	iron, implement made thereof	ASD
	ofost/ōf(o)st/ōfest	n.fem	zeal, haste	W7/ASD
Middle English:	gisarme	n	gisarme	W7
	iron	n	iron	W7
English:	estrogen	n	sex hormone promoting estrus (etc.) in female	AHD/W7
	estrone	n	estrogenic hormone	AHD/W7
	estrus	n	heat, regularly recurrent state during which female mammal is able to conceive	AHD/W7
	gisarme	n	weapon on long staff carried by medieval foot soldiers	AHD/W7
	hierarch	n	religious leader in position of authority	AHD/W7
	hierarchy	n	(body of) persons with authority	AHD
	hieratic	adj	re: ancient Egyptian cursive writing (simpler than hieroglyphic)	AHD/W7
	hier(o)-	pfx	holy, sacred	AHD
	hierodule	n	temple slave (in ancient Greece)	AHD
	Irensaga	prop.n	mountain in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	iron	n	heavy magnetic ductile/malleable metal	AHD/W7
	Isen	prop.n	river in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Isengard	prop.n	Saruman's fortress in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Isengrim	prop.n	hobbit name in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	spiegeleisen	n	variety of pig iron	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	īsern	n	iron (implement)	ASD
Dutch:	ijzer	n	iron	TLL
Old Saxon:	īsarn	n	iron (implement)	ASD
Old Low German:	īsarn	n	iron, steel	ASD
Old High German:	īsarn/īsen	n	iron (implement)	W7/ASD
German:	Eisen	n	iron (implement)	W7
	eisern	adj	of iron	LRC
	Spiegeleisen	n	spiegeleisen	W7
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	īsarn	n	iron (implement)	IEW
Icelandic:	járn/īsarn	n	iron (implement)	ASD
Danish:	jern	n	iron (implement)	ASD
Swedish:	järn	n	iron (implement)	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	eisarn	n	iron, iron fetter	ASD
Italic
Latin:	hieraticus	adj	hieratic, sacerdotal	W7
	oestrus	n.masc	estrus, frenzy, gadfly	W7
Medieval Latin:	hierarcha	n.masc	hierarch	W7
New Latin:	estrus	n.masc	estrus	W7
Middle French:	hierarche	n.masc	hierarch	W7
Hellenic
Greek:	hierarchēs	n.masc	priest, hierarch	W7
	hieratikos	adj	hieratic, re: priests	W7
	ἱερόν	n.neut	temple	LRC
	ἱερός	adj	holy, sacred	LRC
	οʼι̃μαι	vb.dep	to think	LRC
	οʼίομαι	vb	to think, imagine	LRC
	oistros	n.masc	estrus, frenzy, gadfly	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
dep	=	deponent
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pfx	=	prefix
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)
IEW	=	Julius Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

Nearby etyma: previous | next