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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: ghebh-el-, ghebh-_el-, ghebh-elo- 'gable, head'

Semantic Field: Wall

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Middle English:	gable	n	gable	W7
English:	cephalic	adj	re: head	AHD/W7
	cephal(o)-	pfx	head	AHD
	-cephalous	sfx	head	AHD
	encephal(o)-	pfx	brain	AHD/W7
	gable	n	vertical triangular end of building from cornice/eaves to ridge	AHD/W7
	hydrocephalus	n	abnormal increase of cerebrospinal fluid in head	AHD/W7
	pachycephalosaur	n	herbivorous dinosaur with thick domed skull	AHD
	scaphocephalic	adj	boat-shaped, re: long narrow skull deformity	AHD
W-Germanic
Old Saxon:	giƀilla	n.str.masc	skull, head, gable	GED/RPN
Middle Low German:	gevel	n.str.masc	gable	GED/RPN
Old High German:	gebal	n.str.masc	skull, head, gable	GED/RPN
	gibil	n.str.masc	gable	GED/RPN
	gibilla	n.str.masc	skull, head, gable	GED/RPN
German:	Giebel	n.masc	gable	RPN
N-Germanic
Old Icelandic:	gafl	n.str.masc	gable, gable-side	GED/RPN
Faeroese:	gavlur	n	gable	RPN
Norwegian:	gavl	n	gable-side	RPN
Swedish:	gavel	n	transverse wall, partition	RPN
E-Germanic
Gothic:	*gibla	n.masc	gable, pinnacle	GED
Italic
Latin:	cephalicus	adj	re: head	W7
Late Latin:	hydrocephalus	adj	with water in head	W7
Middle French:	céphalique	adj	re: head	W7
Hellenic
Macedonian Greek:	κεβαλή	n	head, front; end, point	GED/RPN
Greek:	κεφαλή	n.fem	head, front, point	GED/RPN
	kephalikos	adj	of the head	W7
	hydrokephalos	adj	hydrocephalus	W7
Tocharian
Tocharian B:	śpālmeṃ	adj	superior, excellent	RPN
	śpālu	adj	superior, excellent	RPN
Tocharian A:	śpāl-	n	skull, head	GED/RPN

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
pfx	=	prefix
sfx	=	suffix
str	=	strong (inflection)

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)
GED	=	Winfred P. Lehmann: A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (1986)
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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