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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: 5. mei-, mi-neu- 'to lessen, diminish; small, minor'

Semantic Field: Small, Little

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Middle English:	deminishen	vb	to diminish	W7
	diminuen	vb	to diminish	W7
	mincen	vb	to mince	W7
	ministre	n	minister	W7
	minor	adj	minor	W7
	minus	prep	minus	W7
English:	comminute	vb.trans	to pulverize, reduce to minute particles	AHD/W7
	diminish	vb	to make less, cause to appear less	AHD/W7
	meiosis	n	cell division halving number of chromosomes	AHD/W7
	Menshevik	prop.n	lit. minority party (of Russian revolution)	LRC
	menu	n	list of dishes to be served at meal	AHD/W7
	mince	vb	to cut/chop into small pieces	AHD/W7
	minestrone	n	rich thick vegetable soup	AHD/W7
	mini	adj	small, miniature	LRC
	minim	n	half note	AHD/W7
	minimum	n	least quantity possible/admissible/assignable	AHD/W7
	minister	n	agent, servant	AHD/W7
	ministration	n	act/process of aiding/serving	AHD
	ministry	n	ministration	AHD
	minor	adj	inferior in size/degree/importance	AHD/W7
	minuend	n	number to be subtracted from	AHD/W7
	minuet	n	slow graceful dance	AHD/W7
	minus	prep	less, diminished by	AHD/W7
	minuscule	n	small ancient/medieval writing style	AHD/W7
	minute	adj	infinitesimal, very small	AHD/W7
	minutia	n	small/minor detail	AHD/W7
	mystery	n	craft, trade	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Dutch:	minder	adj.comp	less, worse	TLL
	minst	adj.sup	least	TLL
Old High German:	minniro	adj.comp	smaller	W7
German:	minder	adj.comp	less, smaller	TLL
	mindest	adj.sup	least	TLL
	mini	adj	mini	LRC
	minimieren	vb	to lessen	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	minni	adj.comp	less, mini	LRC
Danish:	mindre	adj.comp	less, smaller	TLL
	mindst	adj.sup	least	TLL
Swedish:	mindre	adj.comp	less, smaller	TLL
	minst	adj.sup	least	TLL
Italic
Latin:	comminuo, comminuere, comminui, comminutus	vb	to break, lessen	W7
	deminuo, deminuere	vb	to diminish	W7
	minimus	adj	small(est)	W7
	minister	n.masc	servant	W7
	ministro, ministrāre	vb	to serve	W7
	minor	adj.comp	smaller, inferior	W7
	minuendus	vb.ger	diminishing	W7
	minuo, minuere	vb	to lessen	W7
	minus	adv	less	LRC
	minusculus	adj	rather small	W7
	minutia	n.fem	smallness, trifle, detail	W7
	minutus	adj	small	W7
Vulgar Latin:	minutio, minutiāre	vb	to make small	W7
Late Latin:	diminuo, diminuere	vb	to diminish	W7
	minister	n.masc	servant	W7
	ministerium	n.neut	service, occupation	W7
	mysterium	n.neut	service, occupation	W7
Old French:	menu	adj	small	W7
	menuet	n.masc	minuet (dance)	W7
	ministre	n.masc	servant, one with official charge	W7
Middle French:	diminuer	vb	to diminish	W7
	mincer	vb	to mince, make small	W7
French:	menu	adj	small, detailed	W7
	menuet	n.masc	dance, part of sonata	W7/R1
	minuscule	adj	very small	W7
Italian:	minèstra	n.fem	thick soup	W7
	minestrare	vb	to serve, dish up	W7
	minestrone	n.masc	thick soup with rice/vegetables	W7/CID
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	mysliti, myšlǫ, mysliši	vb	to think	LRC
	mьnii	adj.comp	less, smaller	LRC
Russian:	men	n	Menshevik	W7
Hellenic
Greek:	meiow	vb	to diminish	W7
	meiōn	adj.comp	less	W7
	meiōsis	n.fem	diminution	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
comp	=	comparative
fem	=	feminine (gender)
ger	=	gerund(ive)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prep	=	preposition
prop	=	proper
sup	=	superlative
trans	=	transitive
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)
CID	=	Cassell's Italian Dictionary (1958)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
R1	=	Josette Rey-Debove and Alain Rey, eds. Le Nouveau Petit Robert (1993)
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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