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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: nepōt- 'nephew; grandchild'

Semantic Fields: Nephew; Grandson; Granddaughter

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	nefa	n.masc	nephew, stepson, grandson	W7/ASD
	nift	n.fem	niece, granddaughter	KEW
Middle English:	nece	n	niece, granddaughter	W7
	nevew	n	nephew	W7
English:	nephew	n	son of brother(-in-law) or sister(-in-law)	AHD/W7
	nepotism	n	favoritism towards family/relatives	AHD/W7
	niece	n	daughter of brother(-in-law) or sister(-in-law)	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	neva	n	nephew, grandson, stepson	ASD
Dutch:	neef	n.masc	nephew, male cousin	TLL
	nicht	n.fem	niece, female cousin	TLL
Old Saxon:	neb@h%o/nevo	n.masc	nephew	KSW
Old High German:	nefo	n	nephew, grandson, stepson	ASD
German:	Neffe	n.masc	nephew	LRC
	Nichte	n.fem	niece	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	nipt	n.fem	close female relative	KNW
Icelandic:	nefi	n	nephew, kinsman	ASD
Italic
Latin:	nepos, nepōtis	n.masc	nephew, grandson	W7/CLD
	neptis	n.fem	niece, granddaughter	W7
Late Latin:	neptia	n.fem	niece, granddaughter	W7
Old French:	neveu	n.masc	nephew	W7
	nièce	n.fem	niece	W7
French:	népotisme	n.masc	nepotism	W7
Italian:	nepote	n.masc	nephew, grandchild	W7
	nepotismo	n.masc	nepotism	W7
Indic
Sanskrit:	napāt	n	grandson	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun

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)
CLD	=	Cassell's Latin Dictionary (1959, rev. 1968)
KEW	=	Gerhard Köbler: Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed. (2003)
KNW	=	Gerhard Köbler: Altnordisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed. (2003)
KSW	=	Gerhard Köbler: Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed. (2000)
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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