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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: 2. mei-t(h)- 'to commute, (ex)change'

Semantic Fields: to Change; to Trade

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	gemād	adj	mad, silly	W7
	gemǣdan	vb.wk	to madden	W7/ASD
	māðm/mādm/māð(ð)um	n.masc	gift, jewel, treasure	ASD
	māðum-hūs	n.neut	treasury, lit. treasure-house	ASD
	mis(s)-/misse-/mist-	pfx	mis-	W7/ASD
	missan	vb	to miss	W7
Middle English:	amis/amys	adv	amiss	AHD/MEV
	madd/medd	adj	mad	W7
	mis-/mes-	pfx	mis-	W7
	missen	vb	to miss	W7
	mistaken	vb	to mistake	W7
English:	amiss	adj/adv	wrong(ly), improper(ly); astray	W7
	commute	vb	to exchange, give in exchange	AHD/W7
	mad	adj	insane, mentally disordered	AHD/W7
	madden	vb	to make/drive mad	LRC
	mathom	n	hobbit gift in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Mathom-house	prop.n	weapon museum in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	mis-	pfx	bad, wrong; badly, wrongly	AHD/W7
	mishap	n.arch	misfortune, bad luck	AHD/W7
	miss	vb	to fail to reach/touch/contact	AHD/W7
	mistake, mistook, mistaken	vb.str	to choose wrongly	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	mis-	pfx	mis-	ASD
	missa	vb	to miss, be without	ASD
Old Saxon:	mēðmōs	n.pl	gifts, precious things	ASD
	mis-	pfx	mis-	ASD
Old High German:	gimeit	adj	mad, crazy, foolish	W7
	missa-/missi-	pfx	mis-	ASD
	missan	vb	to miss	W7
Middle High German:	misse-	pfx	mis-	ASD
German:	mis(s)-	pfx	mis-	ASD
	missen	vb	to miss	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	mis-	pfx	mis-	W7
	missa, missat	vb	to miss, lose, be without	LRC
	mistaka	vb	to mistake	W7
Icelandic:	meiðmar	n.pl	gifts	ASD
	mis-	pfx	mis-	ASD
	missa	vb	to miss, lack, lose	ASD
Danish:	mis-	pfx	mis-	ASD
Swedish:	mis-	pfx	mis-	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	inmáidjan	vb.wk.I	to transfigure	LRC
	maiþm	n	gift, jewel, treasure	LRC
	missō	adv	reciprocally, one then another, one to another	LRC
Italic
Latin:	commūto, commūtāre	vb	to commute	W7
	mūto, mūtāre	vb	to change	W7
Old French:	mis-/mes-	pfx	not, mis-	W7
Middle French:	mes-	pfx	not, mis-	W7
Indic
Sanskrit:	methati	vb	to hurt	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
I	=	class 1
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
arch	=	archaic
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pfx	=	prefix
pl	=	plural (number)
prop	=	proper
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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
MEV	=	J.R.R. Tolkien: A Middle English Vocabulary (1922)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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