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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.

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: 3. kar-, reduplicated karkar- 'hard'

Semantic Field: Hard

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	carn	n	cairn	W7
	carrac	n.fem	carr, cliff	IEW
Scots Gaelic:	carn	n	cairn	W7
Cornish:	karrek	n	carr	LRC
Welsh:	carn	n	cairn	W7
	carreg	n	carr	LRC
English
Old English:	h(e)ard	adj	hard, stern, strong, brave	ASD
	hearding	n.masc	hero, warrior, brave man	ASD
	heardlīce	adv	hardly, harshly, bravely	AHD
	hearg/hear(c)h/herh	n.masc	temple	IEW/ASD
Northumbrian:	carr	n	carr	OED
Middle English:	-ard	sfx	-ard	W7
	cancer	n	cancer	W7
	canker	n	canker	W7
	carne	n	cairn	W7
	hard	adj	hard	W7
	hardi	adj	hardy	W7
	hardli	adv	hardly	AHD
	standard	n	standard	W7
English:	-ard	n.sfx	one characterized by some performance/possession/association	AHD/W7
	autocrat	n	ruler with unchecked power	TLL
	cairn	n	heap of stones (as landmark/memorial)	W7
	Cancer	prop.n	the Crab (northern zodiacal constellation)	AHD/W7
	cancer	n	(disease involving) malignant tumor	AHD/W7
	canker	n	erosive/spreading sore	AHD/W7
	carangid	adj	re: marine spiny-finned food fish	AHD/W7
	carcin(o)-	pfx	crab; tumor	AHD/W7
	carcinoma	n	malignant epithelial tumor	AHD/W7
	careen	n	state of careening/being careened	AHD/W7
	carina	n	keel-shaped anatomical part/ridge/process	AHD/W7
	carr	n	rock, stone, boulder	OED
	Carrock	prop.n	huge boulder in Tolkien: The Hobbit	LRC
	chancre	n	primary sore/ulcer at site of entry of pathogen	AHD/W7
	-cracy	n.sfx	form of government	AHD/W7
	Dúnharg/Dunharrow	prop.n	Rohan refuge in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	hard	adj	not easily penetrated/yielding to pressure	AHD/W7
	Hardbottle	prop.n	Shire village in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Harding	prop.n	Rohan rider in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	hardly	adv	just, barely	AHD
	hardy	adj	brave, bold	AHD/W7
	Harrowdale	prop.n	Rohan valley in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	standard	n	conspicuous object (banner) serving as emblem	AHD/W7
	synkaryon	n	cell nucleus formed by fusion of preexisting nuclei	AHD/W7
	Underharrow	prop.n	Rohan village in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	herd	adj	hard	RPN
Old Saxon:	hard	adj	hard	RPN
Old High German:	Gērhart	prop.n	Gerard	W7
	-hart	prop.n.sfx	-ard [used in personal names]	W7
	hart(i)/hert(i)	adj	hard	RPN/ASD
	haruc(h)/harug	n.masc	temple	ASD
Middle High German:	-hart	prop.n.sfx	-ard	CDC
German:	-hart	n.sfx	-ard	CDC
	hart	adj	hard	ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	harðr	adj	hard, sharp, severe	LRC
	hǫrgr	n.masc	temple, (stone) altar, outdoor sanctuary	LRC
Old Icelandic:	herða	vb	to make hard	RPN
Icelandic:	harðr	adj	hard	ASD
	hörgr	n.masc	heathen place of worship	ASD
Norwegian:	hard	adj	hard, strong	RPN
Danish:	haard	adj	hard, strong	RPN
Swedish:	hård	adj	hard, strong	RPN
E-Germanic
Gothic:	hardus	adj	hard, stern	RPN
Italic
Latin:	Cancer	prop.n.masc	the Crab (constellation)	W7
	cancer	n.masc	crab, cancer	RPN
	carcinoma	n.neut	cancerous tumor	W7
	carina	n.fem	ship's keel; nutshell	W7
Late Latin:	-cratia	sfx	power	W7
New Latin:	carina	n.fem	carina	W7
	synkaryon	n.neut	cell nucleus formed by fusion of two nuclei	W7
Spanish:	caranga	n.fem	carangid (fish)	W7
	estandarte	n	standard	TLL
Old French:	-ard	n.sfx	-ard	CDC
	hardi	adj	bold, hardy	W7
Old North French:	cancre	n.masc	crab, canker, cancer	W7
Middle French:	carène	n.fem	keel	W7
	-cratie	sfx	power	W7
French:	-ard	n.sfx	-ard	CDC
	autocrate	n	autocrat	AHD
	chancre	n.masc	canker, chancre	W7
	étandard	n	standard	TLL
Old Italian:	carena	n.fem	ship's keel	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	kratùs	adj	rough, uneven	RPN
Hellenic
Ionic:	κάρτος	n	strength, might	RPN
Homeric Greek:	κρατύς	adj	strong, mighty	RPN
Greek:	autokratēs	n	ruling by oneself	AHD
	καρκίνος	n	crab	RPN
	karkinos	n.masc	crab, cancer	W7
	karkinōma	n.neut	cancer	W7
	κάρτα	adv	extremely, very much	LRC
	καρτερός	adj	strong, stout, staunch	RPN
	karyon	n.neut	nut	W7
	κρατέω	vb	to hold fast, take to heart; rule, conquer	LRC
	-kratia	sfx	power, rule	W7
	κράτος	n	strength, might, power	RPN
Indic
Sanskrit:	karkaṭa-ḥ	n	crab	RPN
	karkara-ḥ	adj	hard, firm	RPN
	karkaśá-ḥ	adj	rough, hard	RPN
Pali:	kakkasa-	adj	rough, harsh	RPN

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pfx	=	prefix
prop	=	proper
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)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
IEW	=	Julius Pokorny: Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
OED	=	James A.H. Murray et al: The Oxford English Dictionary (1933)
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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