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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: slak- 'to hit, hammer'

Semantic Fields: to Hit, Strike, Beat; Hammer (n)

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Middle Irish:	slacain	vb.1.sg	I beat	W7
English
Old English:	ofslean, ofslōh, ofslōgon, ofslægen	vb.str.VI	to slay, destroy	LRC
	sle(a)ht/sli(e)ht/slīet/slyht	n.masc	stroke, striking, slaughter	W7/ASD
	slēan, slōg, slōgon, slagen	vb.str	to slay, smite, strike	W7/ASD
	slecg	n.fem	sledge	W7
Middle English:	slaughter	n	slaughter	W7
	slegge	n	sledge	W7
	sleight	n	sleight	W7
	slen	vb	to slay	W7
	sli	adj	sly	W7
English:	onslaught	n	fierce attack	AHD/W7
	schlock	n	shoddy/inferior item	AHD
	slag	n	cinder, dross/scoria of metal	AHD/W7
	slaughter	n	act of killing	AHD/W7
	slay, slew, slain	vb.str	to kill, put to death violently	AHD/W7
	sledge	n	sledgehammer	AHD/W7
	sledgehammer	n	large heavy two-handed hammer	W7
	sleight	n	deceitful craftiness	AHD/W7
	sly	adj	shrewd, canny	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	slā	vb	to slay, smite, strike	ASD
	slachte	n	(mortal) blow; stamp, coining	ASD
Dutch:	aanslag	n	onslaught	W7
Old Saxon:	man-slahta	n.fem	manslaughter	ASD
	slahan	vb	to slay, smite, strike	ASD
Middle Low German:	slagge	n	slag	W7
Old High German:	slaga	n	sledge, hammer, mallet	ASD
	slahan	vb	to slay, smite, strike	W7
	slahta	n	slaughter	ASD
German:	Anschlag	n.masc	onslaught, assault	LRC
	Schlag	n.masc	hit, blow	LRC
	schlagen	vb	to hit, strike, smite	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	slá	vb	to slay, smite, strike	LRC
	slātra	vb	to slaughter	W7
	sleggja	n	sledge	W7
	sloeght	n	sleight	W7
	sloegr	adj	sly	W7
Old Icelandic:	sláttr	n.masc	smiting, mowing; striking an instrument	ICE
Icelandic:	slá	vb	to slay, smite, strike	ASD
	sleggja	n	sledge	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	af-slahan	vb	to slay	ASD
	slahan	vb	to slay, smite, strike	ASD

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
1	=	1st person
VI	=	class 6
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
sg	=	singular (number)
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)
ICE	=	Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson: An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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