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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: bhā̆d- 'good, better'

Semantic Field: Good

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	bētan	vb	to boot	CDC
	bet(e)ra	adj.comp	better	W7/CDC
	bet(e)re	adv.comp	better	CDC
	bet(e)st	adj.sup	best	W7/CDC
	bet(ō)st	adv.sup	best	CDC
	bōt	n.fem	boot; help, offering	W7/ASD
Middle English:	best	adv.sup	best	CDC
	beste	adj.sup	best	CDC
	bet(t)er/betre	adv.comp	better	CDC
	bettre/bet(t)ere	adj.comp	better	W7/CDC
	boote/bot(e)	n	boot, profit	CDC
	bot(e)/boot	n	boot, cure, salvation	MEV/W7
	bōten/beten	vb	to boot	CDC
English:	batten	vb	to grow fat	AHD/W7
	best	adj/adv.sup	excelling all others	AHD/W7
	better	adj/adv.comp	more than half	AHD/W7
	boot	n	redress, remedy, compensation; deliverance	ASD/W7
	boot	vb	to help, avail, profit	W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	beste	adj.sup	best	CDC
	bet(e)re	adj.comp	better	CDC
	bōte	n	boot, profit, advantage; repair, reparation	CDC
	bote	n.fem	boot, assistance	ASD
Dutch:	baat	n	boot, gain, profit, advantage	CDC
	baten	vb	to boot	CDC
	best	adj.sup	best	CDC
	beter	adj.comp	better	CDC
	boete	n.fem	boot, assistance	ASD
Old Saxon:	betara/betera	adj.comp	better	CDC
	betsto	adj.sup	best	CDC
	bōta	n.fem	boot, assistance	ASD
Middle Low German:	bate	n	gain, profit, advantage	CDC
	baten	vb	to boot, help	CDC
Low German:	bate	n	gain, profit, advantage	CDC
	baten	vb	to boot, help	CDC
	bote	n	boot, profit, advantage; repair, reparation	CDC
Old High German:	bezziro	adj.comp	better	CDC
	bezzisto	adj.sup	best	CDC
	bōza	n.fem	boot, assistance	ASD
	buoza	n	boot, profit, advantage; repair, reparation	CDC
Middle High German:	bezzer	adj.comp	better	CDC
	bezzist/best	adj.sup	best	CDC
	buoz(e)	n	boot, assistance	ASD
German:	besser	adj/adv.comp	better	LRC
	best	adj.sup	best	CDC
	Busse	n.fem	boot, profit, advantage; repair, reparation	CDC
	Busze	n.fem	boot, assistance	ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	batna	vb	to improve	W7
	betr	adv.comp	better, more	LRC
	betri	adj.comp	better	LRC
	beztr	adj.sup	best	LRC
	bót	n.fem	boot, atonement	LRC
Icelandic:	bati	n	advantage, improvement	CDC
	betri	adj.comp	better	CDC
	beztr/baztr	adj.sup	best	CDC
	bōt	n.fem	boot, assistance	ASD
Danish:	bedre	adj.comp	better	CDC
	bedst	adj.sup	best	CDC
	bod	n	boot, assistance	ASD
Swedish:	bot	n.masc	boot, assistance	ASD
	bäst	adj.sup	best	CDC
	bättre	adj.comp	better	CDC
E-Germanic
Gothic:	*batan	vb	to boot, be useful	CDC
	batists	adj.sup	best	ASD
	batiza	adj.comp	better	ASD
	bota/bōta	n.str.fem	boot, advantage	ASD
	ga-batnan	vb	to boot, be bettered	CDC
Indic
Sanskrit:	bhadra	adj	fortunate	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
comp	=	comparative
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
str	=	strong (inflection)
sup	=	superlative
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)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
MEV	=	J.R.R. Tolkien: A Middle English Vocabulary (1922)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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