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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: 1. u̯er-, also su̯er- 'to bind, attach; strive'

Semantic Fields: to Bind; to Work, Toil

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	swǣran	vb.wk	to press, be burdensome	GED
	swār/swǣr(e)	adj	heavy	GED/ASD
Middle English:	air(e)/ayere	n	air	W7/MEV
	arsis	n	arsis, raising the voice	AHD
	arterie	n	artery	W7
	aura	n	aura	W7
	meteor	n	meteor	W7
	seryows	adj	serious	W7
English:	aerial	adj	re: air/atmosphere	AHD/W7
	aer(o)-	pfx	aerial	AHD
	aerodyne	n	heavier-than-air aircraft	AHD
	aeronaut	n	one who works/travels in atmosphere	AHD/W7
	air	n	mixture of invisible gases (nitrogen/oxygen) surrounding earth	AHD/W7
	airport	n	place for aircraft takeoff/landing	W7
	aorta	n	great trunk artery carrying blood from heart	AHD/W7
	aria	n	tune, melody	AHD/W7
	arsis	n	lighter/shorter part of poetic foot	AHD/W7
	arteriole	n	small terminal artery ending in capillaries	AHD/W7
	artery	n	tubular branching vessel carrying blood from heart	AHD/W7
	aura	n.obs	air, light breeze	AHD/W2I
	malaria	n	lit. bad air (infected with noxious disease-causing substance)	AHD/W7
	meteor	n	visible aerial phenomenon (e.g. rainbow/snowfall/lightning)	AHD/W7
	serious	adj	sober/subdued/thoughtful in manner/appearance	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	swēr(e)	adj	heavy	GED
	swēria	vb.wk	to press, be burdensome	GED
Old Saxon:	swāri	adj	heavy	GED
Middle Low German:	swāren	vb.wk	to press, be burdensome	GED
	swēre	n.fem	weight, burden	GED
Old High German:	swar	adj	heavy	GED
	swārēn	vb.wk	to press, be burdensome	GED
	swār(i)	adj	heavy	GED/ASD
	swāri(da)	n.fem	weight, burden	GED
German:	schwer	adj	heavy	LRC
	Schwere	n.fem	weight, cruelty	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Icelandic:	svārr	adj	heavy	GED
Icelandic:	svárr	adj	heavy, grave	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	swers	adj	esteemed, honored	GED
Italic
Latin:	āēr, āeris	n.masc	air	W7
	aerius	adj	airy, re: air	W7
	arteria	n.fem	artery	W7
	aura	n.fem	aura	W7
	serius	adj	serious, weighty	GED
Late Latin:	arsis	n.fem	raising of the voice, accented part of foot	W7
	seriosus	adj	serious	W7
Medieval Latin:	meteorum	n.neut	meteor	W7
New Latin:	aorta	n	aorta	AHD
	arteriola	n.fem	vein, arteriole	W7
Portuguese:	arteria	n	artery	CDC
Spanish:	arteria	n	artery	CDC
Old Catalan:	arteria	n	artery	CDC
Old French:	air	n.masc	air	W7
	artere	n	artery	CDC
Middle French:	metéore	n.masc	meteor	W7
	sérieux	adj	serious, grave	W7
French:	artère	n	artery
	artériole	n.fem	small artery, blood vessel	W7
Italian:	aria	n.fem	aura; aria	W7/CID
	arteria	n	artery	CDC
	malaria	n.fem	malaria	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	svãras	n.masc	scale, pound	GED/IEW
	svarùs	adj	heavy	GED
	sver̃ti	vb	to lift, weigh	GED
	svõras/svõris	n	weight	GED
Latvian:	svars	n	weight	GED
Albanian
Albanian:	aeroport	n.masc	airport	LRC
Hellenic
Homeric Greek:	ἀείρω	vb	to lift, raise up	LRC
	ἀήρ	n.masc	air; mist, cloud, vapor	LRC
	αʼίρω	vb	to lift, raise up	LRC
	αʼύρη	n.fem	aura	LRC
Greek:	aerios	adj	aerial	W7
	aortē	n.fem	aorta	W7
	arsis	n.fem	arsis, up-beat	W7
	artēria	n	artery	AHD
	ʽέρμα	n	ship's ballast	GED
	mete-ōros	adj	high in the air	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
obs	=	obsolete
pfx	=	prefix
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)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
CID	=	Cassell's Italian Dictionary (1958)
GED	=	Winfred P. Lehmann: A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (1986)
IEW	=	Julius Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
MEV	=	J.R.R. Tolkien: A Middle English Vocabulary (1922)
W2I	=	Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed. (1959)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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