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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: g̑ep(h)-, g̑ebh- 'jaw, jowl, mouth; to eat'

Semantic Fields: Jaw; Mouth; to Eat

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	gop	n	beak, mouth	RPN
Irish:	gob	n	beak, mouth	RPN
English
Old English:	ce(a)f	n.neut	chaff	W7/ASD
	cēafl	n	jowl	RPN
	ceafor/ceafer	n.masc	chafer	W7/ASD
Middle English:	chaf	n	chaff	W7
	chavel	n	jowl	W7
	cheaffer	n	chafer	W7
English:	chafer	n	large beetle (esp. Scarabaeidae)	AHD/W7
	chaff	n	debris/coverings separated from seed by threshing	AHD/W7
	cockchafer	n	beetle (esp. Melolontha) destructive to plants	AHD
	jowl	n	jaw, cheek, mandible
W-Germanic
Dutch:	kaf	n.neut	chaff	ASD
	kever	n.masc	chafer	ASD
Old Saxon:	kever	n.masc	chafer	ASD
Old High German:	cheva	n	husk	W7
	këvar(o)	n.masc	chafer	ASD
Middle High German:	kaf	n.neut	chaff	ASD
	këvere	n.masc	chafer	ASD
	kivel	n	jowl	W7
New High German:	Kebe	n	fish-gill	RPN
German:	Käfer	n.masc	chafer	ASD
	kaff	n.neut	chaff	ASD
	Kiefer	n.masc	jaw, jawbone	RPN
N-Germanic
Old Icelandic:	kjaptr	n	jaw	RPN
	kjöptr	n	jaw	RPN
Danish:	kaebe	n	jaw	TLL
Swedish:	käft	n	jaw	TLL
Baltic
Lithuanian:	žė́biu, žė́beti	vb	to munch, eat slowly	RPN
Slavic
Czech:	žábra	n	fish-gill	RPN
Iranian
Avestan:	zafarə, zafan-	n	mouth (of evil beings)	RPN

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
RPN	=	Allan R. Bomhard: Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic (2002)
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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