The University of Texas at Austin; College of Liberal Arts

Hans C. Boas, Director :: PCL 5.556, 1 University Station S5490 :: Austin, TX 78712 :: 512-471-4566

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.

Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings may appreciate the source & meaning tips that pop up when the mouse pointer hovers over a non-obvious word or name that he coined from Indo-European (usually Old English or Old Norse) stock. But only reflexes of PIE etyma can be included, and these tend to concentrate in the vocabulary of Rohan and the Shire.

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: 2. g^u̯hen(-ə)- 'to hit, strike, fend'

Semantic Field: to Hit, Strike, Beat

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	gonim	vb	to wound, slay	RPN
	guin	n	wound	RPN
English
Old English:	gūþ	n.fem	war, fight, battle	RPN
	gūþ-wine	n.masc	[kenning for] sword, lit. war-friend	ASD
Middle English:	defenden	vb	to defend	W7
	defens(e)	n	defense	W7
	fenden	vb	to defend	W7
	fens	n	fence, defense	W7
	gonne/gunne	n	gun	W7
	offenden	vb	to offend	W7
	offense	n	offense	W7
English:	bonze	n	Buddhist monk/priest	AHD/W7
	defend	vb	to prevent	AHD/W7
	defense	n	act of defending/preventing	AHD/W7
	fence	n	defense, means of protection	AHD/W7
	fend	vb	to defend	AHD/W7
	Gandalf	prop.n	grey/white wizard in Tolkien: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	gonfalon	n	ensign of certain princes/states (medieval Italy)	AHD/W7
	gun	n	piece of ordnance with high muzzle velocity/flat trajectory	AHD/W7
	Guthláf	prop.n	Theoden's flag-bearer in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Gúthwinë	prop.n	Eomer's sword in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	offend	vb	to sin, transgress moral/divine law	AHD/W7
	offense	n	act of stumbling	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Saxon:	gūðea	n	battle	LRC
Old High German:	gund-	n	war, fight, battle	RPN
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	Gandálfr	prop.n.masc	Gandalf (Voluspa dwarf)	TPE
	gandálfr	n.masc	wizard, lit. staff-elf	LRC
	gandr	n.masc	magic staff/spirit	LRC
	guðr	n.fem	war, fight, battle	LRC
Old Icelandic:	gunnr	n	war, fight, battle	RPN
Icelandic:	gunnr/gūðr	n	war	ASD
Italic
Latin:	dēfendō, dēfendere, defendī, defensus	vb	to defend, repel, ward off	RPN
	-fendere	sfx	to strike	W7
	offendō, offendere	vb	to hit, strike, knock, dash against	RPN
	offēnsō, offēnsāre	vb.freq	to strike, dash against	RPN
	offensus	vb.ptc	offended	W7
Vulgar Latin:	defensa	n.fem	defense	W7
Portuguese:	bonzo	n	bonze	W7
Old French:	defendre	vb	to defend	W7
	defense	n.fem	defense	W7
Middle French:	offendre	vb	to offend	W7
	offense	n.fem	offense	W7
French:	bonze	n	bonze	W7
Italian:	gonfalone	n.masc	gonfalon, standard, banner	W7/CID
Baltic
Lithuanian:	geniù, genė́ti	vb	to lop, prune, trim	RPN
	genù, giñti	vb	to drive	RPN
	gìnti, gìna, gýnė	vb	to defend; drive (cattle)	LRC
Latvian:	dzìt	vb	to drive (cattle)	LRC
Slavic
Czech:	úhona	n	damage, injury	LRC
Serbo-Croatian:	prijègon	n	battle	LRC
Old Church Slavonic:	ženǫ	vb	to drive	LRC
Russian:	gon	n	hunt, driving	LRC
Albanian
Albanian:	gjanj	vb	to hunt	LRC
Hellenic
Homeric Greek:	φόνος	n	bloodshed, murder, slaughter	RPN
Anatolian
Hittite:	ku-en-zi	vb	to strike, kill, slay	RPN
Armenian
Armenian:	ganem	vb	to strike, beat	RPN
Iranian
Avestan:	ǰainti	vb	to strike, beat, kill	RPN
Indic
Sanskrit:	hánti	vb	to smite, hurt, kill	RPN
Tocharian
Tocharian A:	kũnac	n	battle	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
fem	=	feminine (gender)
freq	=	frequentative (aspect)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
prop	=	proper
ptc	=	participle
sfx	=	suffix
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)
CID	=	Cassell's Italian Dictionary (1958)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
RPN	=	Allan R. Bomhard: Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic (2002)
TPE	=	Lee M. Hollander: The Poetic Edda (1962)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

Nearby etyma: previous | next