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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: 2. enebh- : nebh-, embh-, m̥bh- 'wet, damp; cloud, nimbus; water'

Semantic Fields: Wet, Damp; Cloud, Mirk; Water

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	nem	n	sky	LRC
Middle Welsh:	nyfel	n	cloud	LRC
Welsh:	niwl	n	fog, cloud	LRC
English
Old English:	neowol	n	fog	LRC
English:	imbricate	adj	lying overlapped in regular order	AHD/W7
	imbue	vb.trans	to dye/tinge deeply	AHD/W7
	nebula	n	slight cloudy opacity of cornea	AHD/W7
	nebulous	adj	foggy, cloudy	AHD/W7
	nepheline	n	glassy crystalline sodium/potassium/aluminum silicate	AHD/W7
	nephelometer	n	instrument to measure cloudiness	AHD/W7
	nephology	n	meteorology re: clouds	AHD
	Nibelung	prop.n	subterranean dwarf (Germanic mythology)	AHD
	Nibelung	prop.n	Nibelung	W7
	nimbus	n	luminous cloud/vapor/atmosphere around god/goddess on earth	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old High German:	nebul	n	fog, darkness	W7
German:	Nebel	n.masc	fog	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	njól(a)	n	fog, night	LRC
Italic
Latin:	imber, imbris	n.masc	rain	W7
	imbrex, imbricis	n.masc	pantile	W7
	imbuo, imbuere	vb	to steep, saturate	W7
	nebula	n.fem	fog, mist, cloud	W7
	nebulosus	adj	foggy	W7
	nimbus	n.masc	cloud, halo	W7
Late Latin:	imbrico, imbricāre, imbricāvī, imbricātus	vb	to cover with pantiles	W7
French:	néphéline	n.fem	nepheline	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	*nebesis	n	cloud	LRC
Latvian:	debess	n.fem	sky, heaven	LRC
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	nebesьnъ	adj	heavenly, of heaven	LRC
	nebesьskъ	adj	heavenly, of heaven	LRC
	nebo	n.neut	sky, heaven	LRC
Hellenic
Homeric Greek:	νέφος	n.neut	cloud	LRC
Greek:	νεφέλη	n.fem	mist, cloud	LRC
	ombros	n.masc	rain	W7
Anatolian
Hittite:	nepis	n	sky	LRC
Iranian
Pahlavi:	namb	n	mist	W7
Avestan:	napta-	adj	moist, humid	LRC
Indic
Sanskrit:	nábhas-	n	fog, mist, cloud	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
trans	=	transitive
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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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