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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: seip-, seib- 'to sift, pour out'

Semantic Field: to Pour

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	sāpe	n.fem	soap, salve	ASD
	sife	n.neut	sieve	ASD
	sifeþa/seofoþa	n.masc/fem.pl	siftings	ASD
	siftan	vb.wk	to sift	W7/ASD
	sipian/sypian	vb	to seep, take in moisture	ASD
Middle English:	siften	vb	to sift	W7
	sipen	vb	to seep	W7
	sive	n	sieve	W7
	sope	n	soap	W7
English:	saponaceous	adj	soapy, re: soap	AHD/W7
	saponated	adj	treated/combined with soap	AHD/W7
	saponin	n	plant glucosides producing soapy lather	AHD/W7
	saponite	n	hydrous magnesium aluminum silicate	AHD/W7
	seep	vb.intrans	to ooze, flow/pass slowly through pores/small openings	AHD/W7
	sieve	n	device with mesh/perforations through which liquids/fine particles pass	AHD/W7
	sift	vb	to pass through a sieve	AHD/W7
	sipe	vb.intrans	to seep	AHD/W7
	soap	n	cleansing/emulsifying agent made from alkali and fat/fatty acids	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Dutch:	zeep	n	soap	TLL
Middle Low German:	sipen	vb	to seep	W7
Old High German:	seifa	n	soap	ASD
	sib	n.neut	sieve	ASD
German:	Seife	n.fem	soap	LRC
	Sieb	n.neut	sieve	LRC
	sieben	vb	to sieve	LRC
N-Germanic
Danish:	sæbe	n	soap	TLL
Swedish:	saponit	n	saponite	W7
Italic
Latin:	sāpo, sapōnis	n.masc	soap	W7
	sebum	n.neut	tallow	W7
New Latin:	saponaceus	adj	soapy	W7
French:	saponine	n.fem	saponin	W7
Italian:	saponata	n.fem	lather, soapsuds	LRC
	sapone	n.masc	soap	LRC
Slavic
Serbo-Croatian:	sípiti	vb	to drizzle	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
intrans	=	intransitive
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pl	=	plural (number)
vb	=	verb
wk	=	weak (inflection)

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
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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