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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.

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. enebh-, embh-, ombh-, nō̆bh-, nēbh-?, m̥bh- 'navel'

Semantic Field: Navel

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	imbliu	n	navel	LRC
English
Old English:	nafela	n.masc	navel	W7/ASD
	nafogār/nafegār	n.masc	auger	W7/CDC/ASD
	nafu	n.fem	nave (of a wheel)	W7/ASD
Middle English:	auger	n	auger	W7
	nauger/naugor	n	auger	W7/CDC
	nave	n	nave, wheel hub	W7
	navel	n	navel	W7
English:	auger	n	tool to bore holes in wood	AHD/W7
	nave	n	hub of wheel	AHD/W7
	navel	n	abdominal depression where umbilical cord is/was attached	AHD/W7
	nombril	n	center point of lower half of armorial escutcheon	AHD/W7
	omphalos	n	navel	AHD
	umbilical	adj	re: umbilicus	LRC
	umbilicus	n	navel	AHD
	umbo	n	boss of shield	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	navla	n	navel	ASD
Dutch:	avegaar/eveger/egger	n	auger	CDC
Low German:	naviger/näviger	n	auger	CDC
Old High German:	naba	n	nave	ASD
	nabigēr	n	auger	CDC
	nabu/nabalo/nabulo	n	navel	W7/ICE
	nabugēr	n	auger	W7
Middle High German:	nabeger/negeber/negber	n	auger	CDC
German:	Nabel	n.masc	navel; boss (of shield)	ICE
	Näber/Neber	n	auger	CDC
N-Germanic
Old Icelandic:	nafli	n.masc	navel	ICE
Icelandic:	nafarr	n	auger	CDC
	nafli	n	navel	ASD
	nöf	n	nave	ASD
Danish:	navle	n	navel	ICE
Swedish:	nafvare	n	auger	CDC
Italic
Latin:	umbilicus	n.masc	umbilicus	W7
	umbo	n.masc	elbow; shieldboss	W7
Middle French:	nombril	n.masc	navel	W7
Baltic
Latvian:	naba	n	navel	LRC
Hellenic
Greek:	ὀμφᾰλος	n.masc	navel, shieldboss	LRC
Iranian
Avestan:	nāf	n	navel	LRC
Indic
Sanskrit:	nábhya-	n	hub	LRC
	nā́bhi	n	navel	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun

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)
ICE	=	Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson: An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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