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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 and fonts spanning the Unicode 3 character set relevant to Indo-European languages. Versions of this page rendered in alternate character sets are available via links (see Unicode 2 and ISO-8859-1) in the left margin.

Pokorny Etymon: ang^u̯(h)i- 'eel, worm, snake, serpent'

Semantic Fields: Worm; Snake

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	igil	n	ophite	W7
Middle English:	echinus	n	echinus	W7
English:	echidna	n	oviparous burrowing nocturnal mammal	AHD/W7
	echin(o)-	pfx	(re:) prickle, sea urchin	AHD/W7
	echinus	n	sea urchin	AHD/W7
	ophic/ophite	adj	snakelike, serpentine, re: serpent(s)	W2I
	ophidian	adj	re: snakes	AHD/W7
	ophiolite	n	serpentine rock	AHD
	ophiology	n	study of snakes	AHD/W7
	Ophite	prop.n	member of snake-revering cult	AHD/W7
	Ophiuchus	prop.n	equatorial constellation, lit. snake-holder	AHD/CDC
	ophiuroid	n	starfish: sand-star, brittle star	AHD
Italic
Latin:	anguilla	n.fem	eel	W7
	anguis	n.masc	snake	W7
	echidna	n.fem	viper	W7
	echinus	n.masc	edible sea-urchin	W7
New Latin:	echidna	n.fem	oviparous burrowing nocturnal mammal	W7
Hellenic
Homeric Greek:	ὄφις	n.masc	snake, serpent	LRC
Greek:	enchelys	n.fem	eel	W7
	echidna	n.fem	viper	W7
	echinos	n.masc	sea-urchin	W7
	ophitēs	adj	ophite	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
pfx	=	prefix
prop	=	proper

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)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
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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