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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: pōu- : pəu- : pū̆- 'few, small, little; young (of animals)'

Semantic Fields: Small, Little; Young; Animal

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	cæcepol	n	catchpole	W7
	fēa(wa)	adj	few	ASD
	fola	n.masc	foal, colt	ASD
Middle English:	cacchepol	n	catchpole	W7
	depauperat	adj	depauperate	W7
	enpoverisen	vb	to impoverish	W7
	fewe	adj/pron	few	W7
	fole	n	foal	W7
	fyly	n	filly	W7
	paucite	n	paucity	W7
	polet	n	pullet, young fowl	W7
	poure	adj	poor	W7
	poverte	n	poverty	W7
	pultrie	n	poultry	W7
English:	catchpole	n	sheriff's deputy	AHD/W7
	depauperate	adj	falling short in natural size/development	AHD/W7
	encyclopedia	n	work containing information re: all branches of knowledge	AHD/W7
	few	adj/pron	not many (persons/things)	AHD/W7
	filly	n	young female horse	AHD/W7
	foal	n	young animal of horse family	AHD/W7
	impoverish	vb.trans	to make poor, induce poverty	AHD/W7
	orthopedics	n	correction/prevention of skeletal deformities	AHD/W7
	paraffin	n	flammable waxy crystalline substance	AHD/W7
	parvovirus	n	infective agent with DNA in icosahedral protein shell	AHD
	paucity	n	fewness, smallness in number	AHD/W7
	Paul	prop.n	male given name; Apostle to the Gentiles (New Testament)	LRC
	pauper	n	person destitute of means	AHD/W7
	poco	adv	somewhat	AHD/W7
	pococurante	adj	careless, indifferent, apathetic	AHD
	poltroon	n	craven, spiritless coward	AHD/W7
	pony	n	small horse	AHD/W7
	pool	n	aggregate stake to which game players have contributed	AHD/W7
	poor	adj	lacking material possessions, re: poverty	AHD/W7
	poulard	n	young hen spayed for fattening	AHD
	poulter	n	poulterer	CDC
	poulterer	n	poultry seller	CDC
	poultry	n	domesticated bird(s) kept for meat/eggs	AHD/W7
	poverty	n	want, lack of money/material possessions	AHD/W7
	puerile	adj	juvenile, childish	AHD/W7
	puerperal	adj	re: parturition	AHD/W7
	pullet	n	young hen	AHD/W7
	putto	n	Renaissance artistic representation of small child	AHD
	Windfola	prop.n	Eowyn's horse in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	fē	adj	few	ASD
	folla	n.masc	foal	ASD
Frisian:	fole	n	foal	ASD
Dutch:	volen/veulen	n.neut	foal	ASD
Old Saxon:	fāh	adj	few	ASD
Low German:	falen/vale	n	foal	ASD
	fege/vöge	adj	few	ASD
Old High German:	fō	adj	little	W7
	fōh	adj	few	ASD
	folo	n.masc	foal, young animal	ASD
	fuli	n.neut	chick, young animal	ASD
Middle High German:	vol(e)	n.masc	foal	ASD
	vüli/vuln	n.neut	foal	ASD
German:	fohle	n.masc	foal	ASD
	füllen	n.neut	foal	ASD
	Paraffin	n.neut	paraffin	W7
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	fár	adj	few	LRC
	fylja	n	foal	W7
Icelandic:	fār	adj	few	ASD
	foli	n.masc	foal	ASD
Danish:	faa	adj	few	ASD
	fole	n.masc/fem	foal	ASD
	føl	n.neut	foal	ASD
Swedish:	föl	n.neut	foal	ASD
	få	adj	few	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	faus/faws	adj	few	ASD
	fula	n.masc	foal	ASD
Italic
Latin:	affinis	adj	bordering on, related by marriage	W7
	parō, parāre	vb	to prepare, make ready; acquire, obtain	W7
	paro, parere	vb	to give birth to	W7
	parum	adv	too little	LRC
	parvulus, parvula, parvulum	adj	childhood	LRC
	parvus, parva, parvum	adj	small	LRC
	paucitās, paucitātis	n.fem	scarcity	W7
	paucus	adj	few, little	W7
	paulatim	adv	gradually	LRC
	paulo	adv	little	LRC
	Paulus	n.masc	Paul	W7
	pauper	adj	poor	W7
	pauperō, pauperāre	vb	to impoverish	W7
	paupertās, paupertātis	n.fem	poverty	W7
	puer, pueri	n.masc	boy, child	LRC
	puerilis	adj	childish, of children	W7
	puerpera	n.fem	woman in childbirth	W7
	pullus	n.masc	young chicken/animal, sprout	W7
Late Latin:	pullus	n.masc	chicken	W7
Medieval Latin:	depauperatus	vb.ptc	impoverished	W7
	depauperō, depauperāre	vb	to impoverish	W7
	encyclopaedia	n.fem	general education	W7
	pullanus	n.masc	pony	W7
Portuguese:	pobre	adj	poor, impoverished	TLL
Spanish:	pobre	adj	poor, impoverished	TLL
	poco	adj	small, little (in quantity)	W7
Old French:	polet	n.masc	poultry	W7
	poul	n.masc	cock	W7
	poule	n.fem	hen	W7
	poulet	n.masc.dim	pullet, small chicken	W7
	pouleterie	n.fem	poultry	W7
	pouletier	n.masc	poulterer	W7
	poverté	n.fem	poverty	W7
	povre	adj	poor	W7
Old North French:	cachepol	n.masc	chicken chaser	W7
	pol	n.masc	chicken	W7
Middle French:	empovrir	vb	to impoverish	W7
	empovriss-	stem	to impoverish	W7
	paucité	n.fem	paucity, being few	W7
	poulet	n.masc.dim	pullet, small chicken	W7
	pouleterie	n.fem	poultry	W7
	poultron	adj	coward	W7
	povre	adj	poor	W7
French:	pauvre	adj	poor, impoverished	TLL
	poulain	n.masc	colt	W7
	poule	n.fem	hen	W7
	puérile	adj	puerile	W7
Old Italian:	poltro	n.masc	colt	W7
	poltrone	n.masc	colt	W7
Italian:	pòco	adv	little, small	W7
	povero	adj	poor, impoverished	TLL
Hellenic
Greek:	παιδεία	n.fem	child-rearing	AHD/LS
	παιδίον	n.neut	young child	LRC
	παι̃ς, παιδός	n.masc/fem	child; slave, servant	LS
	Paulos	n.masc	Paul	W7
Indic
Sanskrit:	putra	n	son	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
dim	=	diminutive
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pron	=	pronoun
prop	=	proper
ptc	=	participle
stem	=	stem
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)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
LS	=	Liddell and Scott: Greek-English Lexicon, 7th-9th ed's (1882-1940), rev.
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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