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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: sp(h)ē-, sp(h)ə-(dh-) 'long flat piece of wood'

Semantic Field: Board

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	spadu	n.fem	spade	W7
	spōn	n.masc	chip, shaving, splinter	W7
Middle English:	spade	n	spade	W7
	spayen	vb	to spay	W7
	spoon	n	spoon	W7
English:	epee/épée	n	dueling/fencing sword	TLL
	spade	n	digging implement pushed into ground with foot	AHD/W7
	spade	n	black figure on playing card	AHD/W7
	spathe	n	sheathing bract (pair) enclosing inflorescence	AHD/W7
	spathic	adj	foliated, resembling spar	AHD/W7
	spatula	n	flat thin implement for scooping/lifting/mixing/spreading soft substances	AHD/W7
	spay	vb.trans	to remove ovaries of (female animal)	AHD/W7
	sphene	n	silicate mineral of calcium/titanium	AHD/W7
	spoon	n	eating/cooking implement: small shallow bowl with handle	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	spōn	n	chip, shaving	ASD
Old Low German:	spado	n	spade	ASD
Old High German:	spān	n	chip/splinter (of wood)	W7
German:	Span	n.masc	chip, splinter, flint blade	LRC
	Spat(h)	n.masc	spar, spavin	W7
N-Germanic
Icelandic:	spánn/spónn	n	chip, splinter	ASD
Italic
Latin:	spatha	n.fem	blade	W7
Late Latin:	spatula	n.fem	shoulder blade	W7
New Latin:	spatha	n.fem	spathe	W7
Spanish:	espada	n.fem	broad sword	W7
Old French:	espee	n.fem	epee	W7
	espeer	vb	to cut with sword	W7
French:	épée	n	epee	TLL
	sphène	n.fem	sphene	W7
Italian:	spada	n.fem	sword, spade	W7
Hellenic
Greek:	σπάθη	n.fem	flat blade	LS
	σφήν	n.masc	wedge	LS

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
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)
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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