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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: mātér- 'mother'

Semantic Field: Mother

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	máthir	n	mother	LRC
English
Old English:	mōdor	n.fem	mother	W7/ASD
Middle English:	matere	n	matter	W7
	materiel	adj	material	W7
	maternal	adj	maternal	W7
	matrimony	n	matrimony	W7
	matrone	n	matron	W7
	moder	n	mother	W7
English:	Demeter	prop.n	goddess of fertility (Greek mythology)	LRC
	endometrium	n	membrane lining mammalian mother's uterus	TLL
	gammer	n	godmother, grandmother, old woman	OED
	godmother	n	woman who sponsors child at baptism	W7
	grandmother	n	parent's mother; ancestress	LRC
	madrepore	n	stony reef-building coral of tropical seas	AHD/W7
	material	adj	re: matter, physical substance	AHD/W7
	maternal	adj	motherly, re: mother	AHD/W7
	maternity	n	motherhood	AHD
	matriclinous	adj	having maternal hereditary traits	AHD
	matriculate	vb	to enroll as member, esp. of college	AHD/W7
	matrimony	n	marriage, union of man/woman as husband/wife	AHD/W7
	matrix	n	intercellular substance of tissue	AHD/W7
	matron	n	married woman	AHD/W7
	matronymic/metronymic	adj/n	(re:) maternal ancestor's name	AHD
	matter	n	subject under consideration	AHD/W7
	mother	n	female parent	AHD/W7
British English:	mater	n	mother	AHD
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	mōder	n	mother	ASD
Dutch:	moeder	n	mother	TLL
Old Saxon:	mōdar	n	mother	ASD
Old High German:	mouter/muotar	n	mother	W7/ASD
German:	Mutter	n.fem	mother	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	móðir	n.fem	mother	LRC
Icelandic:	móðir	n	mother	ASD
Danish:	moder	n	mother	TLL
Swedish:	moder	n	mother	TLL
	mor	n	mother	TLL
Italic
Latin:	Demeter	prop.n.fem	Demeter	W7
	mater, matris	n.fem	mother	W7
	materia, materiae	n.fem	matter, physical substance	LRC
	maternus	adj	of a mother	W7
	matrimonium, matrimoni	n.neut	marriage	LRC
	matrona	n.fem	wife, married woman, mother	W7
Late Latin:	materialis	adj	material, touchable	W7
	matricula	n.fem	public roll	W7
	matrix, matricis	n.fem	list, womb	W7
Medieval Latin:	matriculo, matriculare, matriculavi, matriculatus	vb	to matriculate	W7
Old French:	matere	n.fem	matter, physical substance	W7
Middle French:	materiel	adj	material	W7
	maternel	adj	maternal	W7
	matremoine	n.masc	matrimony, marriage	W7
	matrone	n.fem	wife, married woman, mother	W7
French:	madrépore	n.fem	madrepore	W7
Italian:	madre	n.fem	mother	W7
	madrepora	n.fem	madrepore	W7
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	mati	n.fem	mother	LRC
Hellenic
Doric:	μάτηρ	n.fem	mother	IEW
Homeric Greek:	Δημήτηρ	prop.n.fem	Demeter	IEW
Greek:	μήτηρ	n.fem	mother	LRC
Armenian
Armenian:	mayr	n	mother	LRC
Iranian
Avestan:	mātar-	n	mother	LRC
Indic
Sanskrit:	mātṛ	n	mother	W7
Tocharian
Tocharian A:	mācar	n	mother	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
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)
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)
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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