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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: deph- 'to push, stamp, thrust'

Semantic Fields: to Push, Shove; to Press

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Middle English:	letter	n	letter	W7
	literal	adj	literal	W7
English:	alliterate	vb	to form/make alliteration	AHD/W7
	alliteration	n	repetition of initial (usu. consonant) sounds in neighboring words/syllables	AHD/W7
	diphtheria	n	acute febrile contagious desease	AHD/W7
	illiterate	adj	unlettered, having little/no education	AHD/W7
	letter	n	written/printed symbol representing speech sound	AHD/W7
	literal	adj	according with letter(s) of scripture	AHD/W7
	literatim	adv	letter-for-letter	AHD/W7
	obliterate	vb.trans	to make undecipherable/imperceptible by obscuring/wearing away	AHD/W7
	transliterate	vb.trans	to spell/represent in letters of another alphabet	AHD/W7
Italic
Latin:	illiteratus	adj	illiterate	W7
	littera	n.fem	letter of the alphabet	W7
	litterae	n.fem.pl	epistle, literature	W7
	litteralis	adj	of a letter	W7
	litteratus	adj	marked with letters, literate	W7
	oblittero, oblitterare, oblitteravi, oblitteratus	vb	to cancel, blot out	W7
Medieval Latin:	literatim	adv	literatim, literally	W7
	litteralis	adj	literal, of letters	W7
New Latin:	diphtheria	n.fem	diphteria	W7
Old French:	lettre	n.fem	letter (of the alphabet)	W7
Middle French:	literal	adj	literal	W7
French:	diphthérie	n.fem	diphteria	W7
Hellenic
Greek:	diphthera	n.fem	leather	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
fem	=	feminine (gender)
n	=	noun
pl	=	plural (number)
trans	=	transitive
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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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