The University of Texas at Austin; College of Liberal Arts

Hans C. Boas, Director :: PCL 5.556, 1 University Station S5490 :: Austin, TX 78712 :: 512-471-4566

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: sk̑āi-, sk̑əi- : sk̑ī- 'to shine/shimmer dully; shadow'

Semantic Fields: to Shine, Glisten; Shade, Shadow

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	Hāmtūn-scīr	prop.n.fem	Hampshire	LRC
	scim(e)rian	vb	to shimmer	W7/ASD
	scīnan, scān/scēan, scinon, scīnen	vb.str	to shine	W7/ASD
	scīr	n.fem	shire, office, district	LRC
	scīr-gerēfa	n.masc	sheriff, lit. shire-reeve	ASD
Middle English:	schimeren	vb	to shimmer	W7
	shinen	vb	to shine	W7
	shire	n	shire	W7
	shirreve	n	sheriff	W7
	stanselen	vb	to ornament with shining colors	W7
English:	gegenschein	n	faint light on celestial sphere opposite sun	AHD/W7
	moonshine	n	moonlight	W7
	sciaenoid	adj	re: fishes including drums/croakers	AHD
	scintilla	n	trace, iota, minute amount	AHD
	scintillate	vb	to spark, emit sparks	AHD/W7
	sciurid	adj	re: rodents including squirrels/related mammals	AHD
	sheriff	n	judicial official of shire/county	W7
	shimmer	vb	to glimmer, shine with fitful/tremulous light	AHD/W7
	shine, shone	vb.str	to emit light	AHD/W7
	Shire	prop.n	hobbit land in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	shire	n	county, administrative subdivision	W7
	Shire-moot	prop.n	Shire meeting in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Shirriff	prop.n	sheriff in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	skiagram	n	picture/photograph of shadows/outlines	AHD
	skiascope/sciascope	n	ophthalmoscopic mirror employed in shadow-test	AHD/CDC
	stencil	n	perforated material through which ink/paint is imprinted on surface	AHD/W7
	tinsel	n	thread/strip/sheet of metal with sparkling/glittering appearance	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	skīna	vb	to shine	ASD
Dutch:	schemeren	vb	to shimmer	ASD
	schijnen	vb	to shine	LRC
Old Saxon:	skīnan	vb	to shine	ASD
Old High German:	scīra	n	care, business, management	W7
	skīnan/scīnan	vb	to shine	W7/ASD
German:	Gegenschein	n.masc	gegenschein	W7
	Schein	n.masc	shine	W7
	scheinen	vb	to shine	LRC
	schimmern	vb	to shimmer	ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	skína	vb	to shine, gleam	LRC
Icelandic:	skína	vb	to shine	ASD
Danish:	skinne	vb	to shine	LRC
Swedish:	skimma/skimra	vb	to shimmer	TLL/ASD
	skin(n)a	vb	to shine	TLL
E-Germanic
Gothic:	skeinan	vb	to shine	ASD
Italic
Latin:	scintilla	n.fem	spark	W7
	scintillatus	vb.ptc	that sparkles	W7
	scintillo, scintillāre	vb	to sparkle	W7
Vulgar Latin:	stincilla	n.fem	spark	W7
Middle French:	estancele	n.fem	spark	W7
	estanceler	vb	to sparkle	W7
	estincelle	n.fem	spark, glitter	W7
	étincelle	n.fem	spark, glitter, spangle	W7
Baltic
Latvian:	seja	n.fem	face	LRC
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	sijati, sijajǫ, sijaješi	vb	to shine, make shine	LRC
Hellenic
Greek:	σκηνή	n.fem	tent	LRC
	skia	n.fem	shadow	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
prop	=	proper
ptc	=	participle
str	=	strong (inflection)
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
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

Nearby etyma: previous | next