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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: leig̑h-, sleig̑h- 'to lick'

Semantic Field: to Lick

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	ligim	vb	to lick	GED
Welsh:	llyfu/llyv	vb	to lick	LRC
English
Old English:	liccian	vb.wk	to lick	GED/ASD
Middle English:	lechour	n	lecher	W7
	licken	vb	to lick	W7
English:	cunnilingus	n	oral stimulation of vulva/clitoris	AHD/W7
	lecher	n	one who engages in lechery	AHD/W7
	lichen	n	thallophytic plants (algae/fungi) growing in symbiosis	AHD/W7
	lick	vb	to draw tongue over	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Saxon:	lekkōn/likkōn	vb	to lick	GED
Middle Low German:	slec	n.str.masc	sweet-tooth	GED
	slicken	vb.wk	to lick	GED
Old High German:	leckōn/lec(c)hōn	vb	to lick	GED/ASD
German:	(sch)lecken	vb	to lick	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Icelandic:	sleikja	vb	to lick	GED
E-Germanic
Gothic:	*bi-laigon	vb.wk.II	to lick	GED
Italic
Latin:	cunnilingus	n.masc	one who licks the vulva	W7
	lichen	n.neut	moss	W7
	linctus, linctūs	n.masc	act of licking	W7
	lingō, lingere, linxī, linctus	vb	to lick	GED
Old French:	lecheor	n.masc	lecher, glutton, parasite, felon	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	liežiù	vb	to lick	GED
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	ližǫ	vb	to lick	GED
Hellenic
Greek:	l(e)ichēn	n.masc	moss; leprosy	W7
	λείχω	vb	to lick	GED
	λιχνεύω	vb	to lick	GED
Armenian
Armenian:	liz(an)em	vb	to lick	GED
Iranian
Avestan:	raēz-	vb	to lick	GED
Indic
Sanskrit:	lihati	vb	to lick	LRC
	léhmi	vb	to lick	GED

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
II	=	class 2
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
str	=	strong (inflection)
vb	=	verb
wk	=	weak (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)
ASD	=	Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller: An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898)
GED	=	Winfred P. Lehmann: A Gothic Etymological Dictionary (1986)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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