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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: poti-s 'host, husband, lord, master, owner'

Semantic Fields: Husband; Master

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Middle English:	impotent	adj	impotent	W7
	omnipotent	adj	omnipotent	W7
	possible	adj	possible	W7
	potent	n	crutch	AHD/W7
	power	n	power	W7
	prepotent	adj	prepotent	W7
English:	bashaw	n	pasha	AHD
	impotent	adj	helpless, not potent, lacking in power/vigor/strength	AHD/W7
	omnipotent	adj	almighty, with power over everything	AHD/W7
	pasha	n	man of high rank; Ottoman title of honor/distinction	AHD/W7
	podesta	n	chief magistrate in medieval Italian municipality	AHD/W7
	possible	adj	being within limits of ability/capacity/realization	AHD/W7
	potency	n	being potent/powerful	W7
	potent	adj	having flat bars across ends of (heraldic cross) arms	AHD/W7
	potent	adj	powerful, having/wielding force/influence/authority	AHD/W7
	potential	adj/n	(re:) power, ability, possibility	W7
	power	n	control/influence/authority over others	AHD/W7
	prepotent	adj	preeminent, having exceptional power/influence/authority	AHD/W7
E-Germanic
Gothic:	bruþfaþs	n.masc	bridegroom	W7/GED
Italic
Latin:	impotens, impotentis	adj	weak, impotent	W7
	omnipotens, omnipotentis	adj/vb.ptc	with power over everything	W7
	possibilis	adj	possible	W7
	possum, posse, potuī	vb	to be able/potent	LRC
	potens, potentis	adj/vb.ptc	potent, powerful	LRC
	potentia, potentiae	n.fem	power, potential	LRC
	poteo, potēre	vb	to be potent, powerful	W7
	potestas, potestatis	n.fem	power	W7
	potis	adj	potent, able, capable	W7
	praepotens, praepotentis	adj/vb.ptc	very potent/powerful	W7
Portuguese:	poder	vb	to be able/potent	TLL
Spanish:	poder	vb	to be able/potent	TLL
Old French:	poeir	vb	to be able, have power	W7
Middle French:	omnipotent	adj	omnipotent	W7
	possible	adj	possible	W7
French:	pouvoir	vb	to be able/potent	TLL
Italian:	podestà	n.fem	power; podesta	W7
	potere	vb	to be able/potent	TLL
Baltic
Lithuanian:	pàt	pcl	very	LRC
	patì	n.fem	wife	LRC
	pàts, patì	pron	oneself	LRC
Latvian:	pat	adv	even	LRC
	pats	pron	himself	LRC
Hellenic
Greek:	πόσις	n.masc	husband	LRC
	πότνια	adj	revered, queenly	LRC
Iranian
Old Persian:	pati-	n	lord, master	AHD
Persian:	pādshāh	n	bashaw	AHD
Indic
Sanskrit:	pati	n	lord, master	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
pcl	=	particle
pron	=	pronoun
ptc	=	participle
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)
GED	=	Winfred P. Lehmann: A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (1986)
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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