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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: 2. g̑hē- : ghə-, and g̑hēi- : g̑hī- 'to gape, yawn'

Semantic Field: to Gape, Yawn

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	for-gǣgan	vb.wk	to infringe, take wrong direction	GED
	gagol/gægl/geagl	adj	excessive, unrestrained	GED/ASD
	gīnan	vb.str	to gape, yawn	GED/ASD
	ginian/geonian/gynian	vb.wk	to yawn	W7/ASD
	gi(o)wian/giwan	vb.wk	to desire, demand	IEW/ASD
Middle English:	gap	n	gap	W7
	gapen	vb	to gape	W7
	gaspen	vb	to gasp	W7
	gigg	n	top: spinning toy	W7
	gille	n	gill	W7
	whirlegigg	n	whirligig	W7
	yanen	vb	to yawn	W7
English:	achene	n	small dry indehiscent single-seeded fruit	AHD/W7
	chasm	n	gorge, deep cleft in earth	AHD/W7
	chasmogamous	adj	re: flower that opens for pollination	AHD
	chasmogamy	n	opening of perianth at flower maturity	AHD
	dehisce	vb.intrans	to split along natural line	AHD/W7
	gap	n	break in wall/hedge/line of military defense	AHD/W7
	gape	vb.intrans	to open mouth wide	AHD/W7
	gasp	vb	to catch breath with shock/other emotion	AHD/W7
	gibe/jibe	vb	to mock, deride, ridicule	IEW
	gig	n	light boat/carriage	IEW
	giggle	vb	to laugh secretly/mockingly	IEW
	gill	n	ravine, narrow stream/rivulet	AHD/W7
	Gilrain	prop.n	Gondor river in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	hiatus	n	gap, break in object	AHD/W7
	lammergeier	n	Europe's largest bird of prey	AHD/W7
	whirligig	n	child's whirling toy	IEW/W7
	yawn	vb	to gape, open wide	AHD/W7
Scots English:	ghyll	n	gill	ICE
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	gēie	n	penance	GED
Old High German:	gīēn	vb.wk	to yawn	GED
	ginēn/g(e)inōn	vb.wk	to yawn	GED
German:	gaffen	vb	to gape, yawn	TLL
	gähnen	vb	to yawn	LRC
	Lämmergeier	n	lammergeier	W7
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	gap	n.neut	gap, hole, chasm	LRC
	gapa	vb	to gape, yawn	W7
	geigr	n.masc	serious injury	LRC
	geispa	vb	to yawn	W7
	gil	n.neut	gill, deep narrow glen with stream	W7/ICE
Old Icelandic:	geiga	vb.wk	to take wrong direction	GED
	geigr	n.masc	serious harm	GED
	gīna	vb	to gape	GED
	gjā	n	ravine, cleft in earth	GED
Icelandic:	gīna	vb	to yawn	ASD
Italic
Latin:	dehisco, dehiscere	vb	to split open	W7
	hio, hiāre, hiavi, hiatus	vb	to gape, yawn, crack open	W7
	hisco, hiscere	vb	to gape, open	W7
New Latin:	achaenium	n.neut	achene	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	žióju	vb	to yawn	GED
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	zěją	vb	to yawn	GED
Hellenic
Greek:	χαίνω	vb	to yawn, gape, (crack) open	GED
Indic
Sanskrit:	jéhamānas	adj	gaping, yawning	GED

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
intrans	=	intransitive
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
str	=	strong (inflection)
vb	=	verb
wk	=	weak (inflection)

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)
GED	=	Winfred P. Lehmann: A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (1986)
ICE	=	Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson: An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874)
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)

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