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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: 2. pō(i)- : pī-, and (from pō-), p_o- 'to bib, drink'

Semantic Field: to Drink

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	ibid	vb	to drink	RPN
English
Old English:	bēor	n.masc	beer	ASD
Middle English:	ber	n	beer	W7
	beverage	n	beverage	W7
	bibben	vb	to bib	W7
	enbiben	vb	to imbibe	W7
	enbrewen	vb	to imbrue	W7
	pocioun	n	potion	W7
	poison	n	poison	W7
	potacioun	n	potation	W7
English:	beer	n	somewhat bitter malted/hopped alcoholic beverage	AHD/W7
	beverage	n	liquid for drinking	AHD/W7
	bib	vb	to drink	AHD/W7
	bibulous	adj	highly absorbent	AHD/W7
	imbibe	vb	to steep, soak	AHD/W7
	imbrue	vb.trans	to stain, drench	AHD/W7
	pinocytosis	n	cell ingesting fluid through membrane	AHD
	pirog	n	meat/fish patty	AHD
	poison	n	substance that kills/injures/impairs organism	AHD/W7
	potable	adj	suitable for drinking	AHD/W7
	potamology	n	scientific study of rivers	AHD
	potation	n	alcoholic drink/brew	AHD/W7
	potatory	adj	re: drinking	AHD/W7
	potion	n	liquid dose/mixture	AHD/W7
	symposium	n	drinking party (esp. following banquet)	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Frisian:	biar	n.neut	beer	ASD
Dutch:	bier	n.neut	beer	ASD
Low German:	beer	n.neut	beer	ASD
Old High German:	bior/pier	n.neut	beer	W7/ASD
German:	Bier	n.neut	beer	ASD
N-Germanic
Icelandic:	bjōr(r)	n.masc	beer	ASD
Italic
Latin:	bibō, bibere	vb	to drink	RPN
	bibulus	adj	fond of drinking	W7
	imbibō, imbibere	vb	to imbibe, drink in, conceive	W7
	potatio, potationis	n.fem	act of drinking	W7
	potatus	vb.ptc	drunk	W7
	pōtiō,	n.fem	drink, potion	W7
	pōtō, pōtāre	vb	to drink	RPN
	pōtus	vb.ptc	drunk (up)	W7
	symposium	n.neut	symposium	W7
Late Latin:	potabilis	adj	drinkable	W7
	potatorius	adj	re: drinking	W7
Portuguese:	beber	vb	to bib	TLL
Spanish:	beber	vb	to bib	TLL
Old French:	poison	n.masc	poison, poisonous drink	W7
Middle French:	abrevrer	vb	to drench	W7
	beivre	vb	to drink	W7
	bevrage	n.masc	beverage	W7
	embevrer	vb	to soak, drench	W7
	embiber	vb	to soak, imbibe	W7
	potation	n.fem	brew, beverage	W7
	potion	n.fem	drink, potion	W7
French:	beuverie	n.fem	drinking party	LRC
	boire	vb	to bib	TLL
Italian:	bevere	vb	to bib	TLL
Baltic
Old Prussian:	poieiti	vb	to drink	RPN
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	pirŭ	n	feast	AHD
	piti, pijǫ, pijęši	vb	to drink	LRC
Albanian
Albanian:	pi	n	drink	RPN
Hellenic
Lesbian:	πώνω	vb	to drink	RPN
Homeric Greek:	πῑ́νω	vb	to drink, drain, quaff	LRC
Greek:	πίνω	vb	to drink	RPN
	sympinein	vb	to drink together	W7
	symposion	n.neut	symposium	W7
Indic
Sanskrit:	páyate	vb	to drink, swallow	RPN
	pā́ti	vb	to drink, swallow	RPN
	píbati	vb	to drink, swallow	RPN

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
ptc	=	participle
trans	=	transitive
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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
RPN	=	Allan R. Bomhard: Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic (2002)
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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