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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. ken- 'to pinch, press, etc.'

Semantic Field: to Press

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Gaelic:	cnō/cnū	n	nut	CDC
English
Old English:	hnecca	n.masc	neck	W7/ASD
	hnutu	n.fem	nut	W7
Middle English:	nekke	n	neck	W7
	nocke	n	nock	W7
	nok(e)	n	nook	W7
	nowell	n	newel	W7
	nute	n	nut	W7
	nut(t)e/note	n	nut	CDC
English:	neck	n	part of animal connecting head with body	AHD/W7
	newel	n	upright post about which circular staircase steps wind	AHD/W7
	nock	n	notch cut in end of bow to hold string	AHD/W7
	noisette	adj	made/flavored with hazelnuts	AHD
	noisette	n	small round deboned piece of meat	AHD
	nook	n	rectangular corner	AHD/W7
	nougat	n	fruit/nut confection in sugar paste	AHD/W7
	nucellus	n	chief/central part of ovule containing embryo sac	AHD/W7
	nucleus	n	small/bright/dense part of comet head	AHD/W7
	nut	n	hard-shelled dry fruit/seed with separable rind/shell and interior kernel	AHD/W7
	nutcracker	n	tool for cracking nuts	LRC
British English:	knacker	n	one who buys/slaughters useless livestoak for meat/hides	AHD
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	hnecka	n	neck, nape	ASD
Middle Dutch:	nocke	n	tip, summit	W7
	not	n	nut	CDC
Dutch:	nek	n	neck	TLL
	noot	n	nut	CDC
Middle Low German:	not(e)	n	nut	CDC
Low German:	nut(t)/nude	n	nut	CDC
Old High German:	hnac(h)	n	nape	W7/ASD
	(h)nuz	n	nut	W7/ASD
German:	Nacken	n	neck, nape	ASD
	Nuß	n.fem	nut	CDC
	Nußknacker	n.masc	nutcracker	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	hnykkja, hnykkjað	vb	to pull violently	LRC
Icelandic:	hnakki	n	nape of neck, back of head	ASD
	hnot	n.fem	nut	CDC/ASD
Danish:	nöd	n	nut	CDC
Swedish:	nöt	n	nut	CDC
Italic
Latin:	nucella	n.fem.dim	small nut	W7
	nucleus	n.masc	stone, kernel	W7
	nux, nucis	n.fem	nut	W7
Late Latin:	nucalis	adj	like a nut	W7
New Latin:	nucellus	n.masc.dim	central part of an ovule containing the embryo sac	W7
	nucleus	n.masc	nucleus of a cell	W7
Middle French:	nouel	n.masc	stone of a fruit	W7
French:	nougat	n.masc	nougat	W7
Old Provençal:	noga	n.fem	nut	W7
	nogat	n.masc	nougat	W7
Provençal:	nougat	n.masc	nougat	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
dim	=	diminutive
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
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)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
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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