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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: 1. ker-, kor-, kr- (onomatopoeic: hoarse sound)

Semantic Field: Sound (n)

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Irish:	rocas	n	rook	CDC
English
Old English:	hrǣcan	vb	to spit, hawk	W7
	hræfn/hrefn/hræmn/hremn	n.masc	raven	CDC/ASD
	hrāgra	n.masc	heron	KEW/ASD
	hringan	vb.wk	to ring	W7/ASD
	hrōc	n.masc	rook	W7/ASD
	scrīc/scrēc	n	shrike, thrush	W7/ASD
Middle English:	corbel	n	corbel	W7
	creken	vb	to creak, croak	IEW
	crevice	n	crevice	W7
	criket	n	cricket	W7
	decrepit	adj	decrepit	W7
	heiroun	n	heron	W7
	raven/reven/revin	n	raven	CDC
	rechen	vb	to spit, retch	W7
	ringen	vb	to ring	W7
	ro(o)k/roc	n	rook	CDC
	scremen	vb	to scream	W7
	scrichen	vb	to screech	W7
	shrik	n	shrike	W7
	shriken	vb	to shriek, screech	W7
English:	coracoid	adj	re: vertebrate process/cartilage bone extending from scapula to(ward) sternum	AHD/W7
	corbel	n	architectural member projecting from within wall, supporting weight	AHD/W7
	corbina	n	American marine fish	AHD/W7
	corvine	adj	re: crow	AHD/W7
	Corvus	prop.n	southern constellation, lit. Crow	LRC
	creak	vb	to make prolonged grating/squeaking sound	IEW/W7
	crepitate	vb.intrans	to crackle, make crackling sound	AHD/W7
	crevice	n	fissure, narrow opening caused by split/crack	AHD/W7
	cricket	n	leaping orthopterous insect	AHD/W7
	decrepit	adj	wasted/weakened by infirmities of age	AHD/W7
	decrepitate	vb	to roast to cause/halt crackling	AHD/W7
	heron	n	long-necked wading bird	W7
	raven	n	glossy black corvine bird	AHD/W7
	retch	vb	to make effort to vomit	AHD/W7
	ring, rang, rung	vb.str	to sound resonantly	AHD/W7
	Roäc	prop.n	dwarf-friendly raven in Tolkien: The Hobbit	LRC
	rook	n	Old World gregarious bird	AHD/W7
	screak	vb.intrans	to screech, make harsh shrill noise	AHD/W7
	scream	vb	to make sudden loud/sharp cry	AHD/W7
	screech	vb	to make high shrill piercing cry	AHD/W7
	scritch	vb	to make high shrill piercing cry	AHD/W7
	shrike	n	gray/brownish oscine bird	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Dutch:	rouca	n	rook	ASD
Middle Dutch:	ringen	vb	to ring	W7
	roeck	n	rook	CDC
Dutch:	rave(n)/raaf	n	raven	CDC
	reiger	n	heron	TLL
	roek	n	rook	CDC
Middle Low German:	rave(n)	n	raven	CDC
	rōk(e)	n	rook	CDC
Low German:	rave	n	raven	CDC
	ro(e)k	n	rook	CDC
Old High German:	heigaro	n	heron	W7
	hruoh	n	rook	CDC
	rabo/(h)raban/(h)ram	n.masc	raven	CDC
	rachison	vb	to spit, hawk	ASD
	scrīan	vb	to scream	W7
Middle High German:	rube/rappe/raben/ram(m)	n.masc	raven	CDC
	ruoch	n	rook	CDC
German:	Rabe	n.masc	raven	ASD
	Reiher	n	heron	TLL
	schreien	vb	to scream	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	hegri	n.masc	heron	LRC
	hrafn/hramn	n.masc	raven	CDC/ICE
	hrōkr	n.masc	rook	CDC/ICE
	skrækja	vb	to screak	W7
Icelandic:	hrafn/hramn	n	raven	ASD
	hringja	vb	to ring	ASD
	hrókr	n	rook	ASD
	hrækja	vb	to spit, hawk	ASD
Danish:	hejre	n	heron	TLL
	raage	n	rook	CDC
	ravn	n	raven	CDC
Old Swedish:	rafn/ramn	n	raven	CDC
Swedish:	häger	n	heron	TLL
	råka	n	rook	CDC
Italic
Latin:	corvinus	adj	re: crow/raven	W7
	corvus	n.masc	crow, raven	W7
	crepito, crepitare, crepitavi, crepitatus	vb	to crackle	W7
	crepitus, crepitūs	n.masc	rattling sound	W7
	crepō, crepāre, crepuī, crepitus	vb	to crack, rattle	W7
	decrepitus	adj	infirm, decrepit	W7
	increpō, increpāre, increpuī, increpitum	vb	to scold, rebuke	LRC
New Latin:	decrepito, decrepitare, decrepitavi, decrepitatus	vb	to make decrepit	W7
Spanish:	corbina	n.fem	acanthopterygian fish	W7
	corvino	adj	re: crow/raven	W7
Mexican Spanish:	corbina	n.fem	kind of fish	W7
Old French:	crevace	n.fem	crevice	W7
	crever	vb	to break	W7
Middle French:	corbel	n.masc	crow, raven	W7
	corp	n.masc	raven	W7
	crevace	n.fem	crevice	W7
	criquet	n.masc	cricket	W7
	decrepit	adj	decrepit	W7
	hairon	n	heron	W7
French:	corbeau	n.masc	crow, raven	LRC
Baltic
Lithuanian:	krankti	vb	to croak	W7/LD
Hellenic
Greek:	korakoeidēs	adj	like a crow/raven	W7
	korax, korakos	n.masc	crow, raven	W7
	κραυγή	n.fem	shout	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
intrans	=	intransitive
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
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)
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)
IEW	=	Julius Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959)
KEW	=	Gerhard Köbler: Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed. (2003)
LD	=	Bronius Piesarskas and Bronius Svecevicius: Lithuanian Dictionary (1994)
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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