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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: u̯eip-, u̯eib- 'to turn, whip, sway, vibrate'

Semantic Field: to Turn

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	mere-wīf	n.neut	water-witch, woman living in lake	ASD
	wīf	n.neut	wife, woman	LRC
	wīf-man(n), wīf-men	n.str.masc	woman, lit. wife-man	W7/ASD
	wīm-man(n), wīm-men	n.str.masc	woman, lit. wife-man	ASD
	wimpel	n.masc	wimple	W7
	wīpian	vb	to wipe	W7
Middle English:	waif	n	waif	W7
	weiven	vb	to waive	W7
	w(h)ippen	vb	to whip	W7
	wif	n	wife	W7
	wimble	n	wimble	W7
	wimpel	n	wimple	W7
	wipen	vb	to wipe	W7
	woman, women	n	woman	W7
English:	Entwives	prop.n.pl	adult female Ents in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	gimp	n	ornamental braid/cord for trimming	AHD/W7
	guimpe	n	blouse worn under jumper/pinafore	AHD/W7
	guipure	n	heavy decorative lace	AHD/W7
	vibrate	vb	to swing/move to and fro	AHD/W7
	waif	n	unclaimed property (e.g. washed up by sea)	AHD/W7
	waive	vb.trans	to forsake, abandon, give up	AHD/W7
	waiver	n	intentional abandonment/relinquishment of right/claim/privilege	AHD/W7
	whip	vb	to take/pull/jerk/move quickly/forcefully	AHD/W7
	wife, wives	n	(married) woman	W7
	wimble	n	auger, instrument for boring holes	AHD/W7
	wimple	n	cloth covering worn over head/around neck/chin by women	AHD/W7
	wipe	vb.trans	to rub/clean with something soft	AHD/W7
	woman, women	n	adult female human being	W7
British English:	charwoman	n	woman hired to clean house/office	W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	wīf	n.neut	wife, woman	ASD
Middle Dutch:	wimmel	n	wimble	W7
	wippen	n	to whip, sway, move up and down	W7
Old Saxon:	wīf	n.neut	wife, woman	ASD
Middle Low German:	wimmel	n	wimble	W7
Old High German:	wīb/wīp	n.neut	wife, woman	W7/ASD
	wīfan	vb	to wind around	W7
	wimpal	n.masc	wimple, garment	ASD
German:	wippen	vb	to whip, sway, move up and down	LRC
N-Germanic
Icelandic:	vimpill	n.masc	hood, veil, wimple	ASD
	víf	n.neut	wife, woman	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	biwáibjan	vb.wk.I	to wrap, clothe	LRC
Italic
Latin:	vibratus	vb.ptc	shaken, vibrated	W7
	vibrō, vibrāre	vb	to shake, vibrate	W7
Old French:	guimple	n	wimple, garment	AHD
	guiper	vb	to cover with silk	AHD
Old North French:	waif	adj	lost, unclaimed	W7
	weyver	vb	to waive	W7
Anglo-French:	weyver	vb	to waive	W7
	wimble	n.masc	wimble	W7
French:	guimpe	n.fem	nun's wimple, chemisette	W7
	guipure	n	guipure	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
I	=	class 1
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pl	=	plural (number)
prop	=	proper
ptc	=	participle
str	=	strong (inflection)
trans	=	transitive
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
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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