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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: 2. nei-, neiə-, nī- 'to be moved, excited; to shine'

Semantic Fields: Passion; to Shine, Glisten

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	hnitu	n.fem	nit	W7/ASD
	nīð	n.masc	enmity, hostility	LRC
	nīð-hēdig	adj	lit. battle-resolved	LRC
Middle English:	net	adj	clean, bright	W7
	nite	n	nit, insect egg	W7
English:	anil	n	indigo plant/dye	AHD
	natty	adj	neat, trim, smart, tidy, dapper	AHD
	neat	adj	straight, free from dilution/admixture	AHD/W7
	net	adj	free from all charges/deductions	AHD/W7
	niddering	n.arch	wretch, cowardly person	AHD
	nilgai	n	large long-legged Indian antelope	AHD
	nit	n	egg of louse/other parasitic insect	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	nīth	n	envy, hatred, enmity	ASD
Old Saxon:	nīð	n	envy, hatred, enmity	ASD
Old High German:	(h)niz	n	nit	W7/ASD
	nīd	n	envy, hatred, enmity	ASD
German:	Niss	n	nit	ASD
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	nið	n.neut	waning moon	LRC
Icelandic:	gnit	n.fem	nit	ASD
	nīð	n	libel, lampoon	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	neiþ	n	envy, hatred, enmity	ASD
Italic
Latin:	niteo, nitēre	vb	to shine	W7
	nitidus	adj	neat; bright	W7
Portuguese:	anil	n	anil	AHD
Middle French:	net	adj	clean	W7
French:	anil	n	anil	AHD
Hellenic
Greek:	konis, konidos	n.fem	dust, ashes	W7
Iranian
Old Persian:	naiba-	adj	beautiful	W7
Persian:	nīl	n	indigo, dark blue	AHD
Indic
Sanskrit:	nīla-	n	indigo, dark blue	AHD

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
arch	=	archaic
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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