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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: bhei- 'bee (insect)'

Semantic Field: Bee

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	bech	n	bee	RPN
Welsh:	bydalf	n	beehive	LRC
English
Old English:	beó/bī, beón	n.fem	bee(s)	CDC
	bēo	n.fem	bee	RPN
	beofian	vb	to tremble	CDC
	Bēowulf	prop.n.masc	Bear, lit. bee-wolf	LRC
Middle English:	bee, been	n	bee(s)	CDC
English:	bee	n	social insect: maker of honey	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Dutch:	bie	n	bee	CDC
Dutch:	bij(e)	n.fem	bee	CDC/ASD
Old Saxon:	bibhōn	vb	to tremble	CDC
Low German:	bigge	n	bee	CDC
Old High German:	bibēn	vb	to tremble	CDC
	bī(n)a/pīa	n.fem	bee	RPN/ASD
	bini	n.neut	bee	CDC
Middle High German:	biben	vb	to tremble	CDC
	bīn/bīe	n.fem	bee	CDC/ASD
	bin(e)	n.neut	bee	CDC
German:	beben	vb	to tremble	CDC
	Biene/Beie	n.fem	bee	ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	bý	n.neut	bee	ASD
	bý-fluga	n.fem	bee-fly	ASD
Icelandic:	bifa	vb	to tremble	CDC
	bȳ	n	bee	CDC
Danish:	bi	n.neut	bee	CDC/ASD
Swedish:	bi	n.neut	bee	CDC/ASD
Italic
Latin:	fūcus, fūci	n.masc	drone bee	LRC
Baltic
Old Prussian:	bitte	n	bee	LRC
Lithuanian:	bijoti	vb	to fear	CDC
	bìtė	n.fem	bee	RPN
	bitynas	n.masc	apiary	LD
Latvian:	bite	n.fem	bee	LRC
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	bojati	vb	to fear	CDC
	bьčela	n	bee	RPN
Russian:	bojatĭ	vb	to fear	CDC
Hellenic
Greek:	φοβέω	vb	to terrify	LRC
Iranian
Baluchi:	bēnog	n	honey	RPN
Dardic
Dameli:	bin	n	honey	RPN
	binaká	n	bee	RPN
Shumashti:	bəen	n	honey	RPN
Pashayi:	bēn	n	honey	RPN
Indic
Sanskrit:	bhī	vb	to fear	CDC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
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)
LD	=	Bronius Piesarskas and Bronius Svecevicius: Lithuanian Dictionary (1994)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
RPN	=	Allan R. Bomhard: Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic (2002)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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