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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: ers- : orsos 'tail; arse, rump, backside'

Semantic Field: Tail

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	asan	n	ass: donkey	W7
	err	n	arse, tail	W7
Irish:	asal	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Gaelic:	asal	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Manx:	assyl	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Breton:	azen	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Cornish:	asen	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Welsh:	asyn	n	ass: donkey	CDC
English
Old English:	ærs/ears	n.masc	arse	AHD/ASD
	assa/asse	n.masc	ass: donkey	W7/ASD
	assen	n.fem	ass: donkey	CDC
Northumbrian:	asal/as(s)ald	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Middle English:	ars/ers	n	arse	CDC
	ass/as(se)	n	ass: donkey	W7/CDC
	squirel	n	squirrel	W7
English:	anthurium	n	(genus of) tropical evergreen ornamental plant	AHD
	anuran	n	salientian: tailless amphibian	AHD/W7
	arse	n	rump, buttocks, backside	LRC
	ass	n	arse; donkey	AHD/W7
	cynosure	n	northern constellation Ursa Minor	AHD/W7
	dasyure	n	Australian/Tasmanian arboreal carnivorous marsupial mammal	AHD/W7
	dodo	n	extinct heavy flightless bird	AHD/W7
	eremurus	n	foxtail lily	AHD/W7
	ophiuroid	n	starfish: sand-star, brittle star	AHD
	oxyuriasis	n	pinworm disease/infestation	AHD/W7
	silurid	n	freshwater Eurasian catfish	AHD
	squirrel	n	small/medium-sized rodent	AHD/W7
	trichuriasis	n	whipworm disease/infestation	AHD/W7
	-urous	adj.sfx	-tailed	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	ers	n	arse	ASD
Frisian:	earse/earz	n	arse	ASD
Dutch:	aars	n.masc	arse	ASD
	ezel	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Old Saxon:	esil	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Old High German:	ars	n.masc	arse	W7/ASD
	esil	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Middle High German:	ars	n.masc	arse	ASD
	esel	n	ass: donkey	CDC
German:	Arsch	n.masc/fem	arse	W7/ASD
	Esel	n.masc	ass: donkey	CDC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	ars	n	arse	W7
	asni	n.masc	ass: donkey	ASD
Icelandic:	ars/rass	n.masc	arse	ASD
	asna	n.fem	ass: donkey	CDC
	asni	n.masc	ass: donkey	CDC
Danish:	ar(t)s	n.masc/fem	arse	ASD
	asen	n	ass: donkey	CDC
	esel/æsel	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Swedish:	ars	n.masc	arse	ASD
	åsna	n	ass: donkey	CDC
E-Germanic
Gothic:	asilus	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Italic
Latin:	asinus	n.masc	ass: donkey	W7
	cynosura	n.fem	Ursa Minor	W7
	sciurus	n.masc	squirrel	W7
Vulgar Latin:	scuriolus	n.masc	small squirrel	W7
	scurius	n.masc	squirrel	W7
New Latin:	Anthurium	prop.n	(genus name for) anthurium	AHD
	Anura	n	(order of) frogs/toads	AHD
	eremurus	adj	solitary	W7
	oxyuriasis	n.fem	pinworm disease/infestation	W7
	Oxyuris	n.fem	(genus of) worm	W7
	trichuriasis	n.fem	whipworm disease/infestation	W7
	Trichuris	n.fem	(genus of) worm	W7
	-urus	sfx	having a tail	W7
Portuguese:	asno	n	ass: donkey	CDC
	doudo	adj	silly, stupid	W7
Spanish:	asno	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Old French:	asne	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Middle French:	cynosure	n.fem	cynosure	W7
	esquireul	n.masc	squirrel	W7
French:	âne	n.masc	ass: donkey	CDC
Provençal:	asne	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Italian:	asino	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Baltic
Old Prussian:	asilis	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Lithuanian:	asilas	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Slavic
Polish:	osieł/osioł	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Czech:	osel	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Old Church Slavonic:	osĭlŭ	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Russian:	oselŭ	n	ass: donkey	CDC
Hellenic
Greek:	κῠνόσ-ουρα	n.fem	cynosure, lit. dog's tail	LS
	ʼόνος	n.masc/fem	ass: donkey	CDC/LS
	ʼόρρος	n.masc	arse	LRC
	οὐρά	n.fem	tail	LRC
Armenian
Armenian:	oṙ	n	arse	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
prop	=	proper
sfx	=	suffix

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
LS	=	Liddell and Scott: Greek-English Lexicon, 7th-9th ed's (1882-1940), rev.
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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