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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: mereg̑- 'march, edge, border, frontier'

Semantic Field: Edge

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	marc	n	marc	W7
	marc	n.neut	mark: half a pound	ASD
	mearc	n.fem	march: border, boundary	ASD
	mearcian	vb	to mark	W7
	*riddena-mearc	n.fem	land of knights, lit. riders' march	LRC
Middle English:	marche	n	march	W7
	margin	n	margin	W7
	mark	n	mark	W7
	marken	vb	to mark	W7
English:	demarcation	n	act of marking limits/boundaries	AHD/CDC
	Denmark	prop.n	Scandinavian country, lit. Dane-march	LRC
	emarginate	adj	having notched margin	AHD/W7
	Fenmarch	prop.n	east Rohan border in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	marc	n	residue from fruit pressing	AHD/W7
	march	n	mark, frontier, border region	AHD/W7
	march	vb	to walk steadily with regular stride	AHD/W7
	marchese	n	marquess	AHD/W7
	marchioness	n	wife/widow of marquess	AHD/W7
	margin	n	part of page outside main body of printed/written matter	AHD/W7
	Mark	prop.n	land a.k.a. Rohan in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	mark	n	border/boundary land	AHD/W7
	mark	n	old European weight/currency unit	AHD/W7
	mark	vb	to fix/trace limits/boundary (e.g. of land)	AHD/W7
	marka	n	Germanic mark: currency unit	AHD
	markka	n	Swedish mark: currency unit	AHD
	marquee	n	large field tent for party/reception/exhibition	AHD/W7
	marquess	n	nobleman ranked between duke and earl/count	AHD/W7
	marquetry	n	(insertion of) wood/shell/ivory in veneer applied to furniture	AHD/W7
	marquis	n	marquess	AHD/W7
	marquise	n	wife/widow of marquis	AHD/W7
	ostmark	n	E German monetary unit	AHD
	reichsmark	n	German mark (1925-48)	W7
	remark	vb	to mark distinctively	AHD/W7
	Riddermark	prop.n	land a.k.a. Rohan in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Westmarch	prop.n	Shire district in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	mark/merk	n.fem	mark: half a pound	ASD
	merke	n	mark/march, district	ASD
	merkia	vb	to mark	ASD
Old Saxon:	marka	n	mark/march, district	ASD
	markōn	vb	to mark	ASD
Old Low German:	marka	n	mark/march, district	ASD
Old High German:	marc(h)a/marka	n	mark/march, boundary	IEW/ASD
	marc(h)ōn/markjan/markēn	vb	to mark	W7/ASD
Middle High German:	marke	n	marka	AHD
German:	marschieren	vb	to march	LRC
	Reichsmark	n.fem	reichsmark	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	mǫrk	n.fem	mark/march, forested border	IEW
	mǫrk	n.fem	mark (of silver)	LRC
Icelandic:	marka/merkja	vb	to mark	ASD
	mörk	n	mark/march, district, forested border	ASD
	mörk	n.fem	mark: half a pound	ASD
Danish:	mark	n	mark: land, field	TLL
Swedish:	mark	n	markka	AHD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	marka, markōs	n.fem	mark/march, borders (of a country)	IEW/ASD
Italic
Latin:	emargino, emarginare, emarginavi, emarginatus	vb	to deprive of a margin	W7
	margo, marginis	n.fem	border	W7
Medieval Latin:	marca	n.fem	mark/march, border region	W7
	marcensis	adj	re: border region(s)	W7
	marchio, marchionis	n.masc	marquess	W7
	marchionissa	n.fem	marchioness	W7
Old French:	marche	n	march	W7
	marchier	vb	to march, trample	W7
Middle French:	marc	n.masc	medieval coin	W7
	marchier	vb	to march, trample	W7
	marque	n.fem	mark, sign, brand	W7
	marquer	vb	to mark	W7
	marqueter	vb	to checker, inlay	W7
	marqueterie	n.fem	marquetry, inlay	W7
	remarquer	vb	to remark	W7
French:	marc	n.masc	marc; mark: unit of weight	W7
	marquis	n.masc	marquess	W7
	marquise	n.fem	marchioness; canopy, glass porch	W7
	remarquer	vb	to remark	W7
Old Italian:	marcare	vb	to remark	W7
Italian:	marchese	n.masc	marquess	W7/CID

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
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)
CID	=	Cassell's Italian Dictionary (1958)
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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