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Indo-European Lexicon

PIE Etymon and IE Reflexes

Below we display: a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) etymon from Pokorny, with an 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 "principle 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 at the end. All reflex pages are currently under active construction; as time goes on corrections may be made and/or more 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: nek^u̯-(t-) 'night'

Semantic Field: Night

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	niht	n.fem	night	LRC
	niht-scūa	n.masc	night's cover	LRC
	niht-waco	n.fem	night-watch	LRC
Middle English:	equinox	n	equinox	W7
	fourtenight	n	fortnight	W7
	night	n	night	W7
	nocturne	n	nocturn	W7
English:	denigrate	vb.trans	to defame, cast aspersions on	AHD/W7
	equinox	n	when day and night are equally long	AHD/W7
	fortnight	n	period of 2 weeks, lit. 14 nights	AHD/W7
	niello	n	deep black metal alloy: sulfur with silver/copper/lead	AHD/W7
	night	n	dusk-to-dawn period when no sunlight is visible	AHD/W7
	nigrosine	n	azine dyes related to indulines	AHD/W7
	nocturn	n	principal division of office of matins	AHD/W7
	nocturnal	adj	re: night	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old High German:	naht	n	night	W7
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	nótt	n.fem	night	LRC
E-Germanic
Gothic:	nahts	n.wk.fem	night	LRC
Italic
Latin:	aequinoctium	n.neut	equinox	W7
	denigro, denigrare, denigravi, denigratus	vb	to denigrate	W7
	nigellus	adj	blackish	W7
	niger	adj	black	W7
	nigro, nigrare	vb	to blacken	W7
	nocturnus	adj	of the night	W7
	nox, noctis	n.fem	night	LRC
Late Latin:	nocturnalis	adj	of the night	W7
Medieval Latin:	equinoxium	n.neut	equinox	W7
Italian:	nièllo	n.masc	niello, inlaid enamelwork	W7/CID
Middle French:	equinoxe	n.fem	equinox	W7
	nocturne	adj	of the night	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	naktìs	n.fem	night	LRC
Latvian:	nakts	n.fem	night	LRC
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	noštь	n.fem	night	LRC
	noštьnъ	adj	nocturnal	LRC
Hellenic
Greek:	νύκτωρ	adv	by night	LRC
	νύξ, νύκτος	n.fem	night	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
adv	=	adverb(ial)
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
trans	=	transitive
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)
CID	=	Cassell's Italian Dictionary (1958)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)