The University of Texas at Austin; College of Liberal Arts

Hans C. Boas, Director :: PCL 5.556, 1 University Station S5490 :: Austin, TX 78712 :: 512-471-4566

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: onogh- : ongh-, nogh-, Celtic n̥gh-, ongh-li- 'claw, (finger/toe) nail'

Semantic Field: Nail, Claw

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	angnægl	n.masc	agnail, corn on toe/foot	W7/ASD
	næg(e)l	n	(finger/toe/metal) nail, claw, spear	W7/ASD
	wer-nægl	n.masc	warnel, lit. man-nail	OED
Middle English:	agnail	n	agnail	W7
	nail	n	nail	W7
	onix	n	onyx	W7
	sardonix	n	sardonyx	W7
English:	agnail	n	sore/inflammation around toenail/fingernail	AHD/W7
	fingernail	n	horny sheath protecting upper end of primate finger	W7
	hangnail	n	agnail	AHD
	nail	n	horny sheath protecting upper end of primate finger/toe	AHD/W7
	nail	n	pointed/headed metal fastener	W7
	onyx	n	parallel layers of chalcedony in different colors	AHD/W7
	paronychia	n	tissue inflammation around fingernail/toenail	AHD
	perionychium	n	tissue bordering root/sides of fingernail/toenail	AHD/W7
	sardonyx	n	onyx with parallel layers of sard	AHD/W7
	toenail	n	horny sheath protecting upper end of primate toe	W7
	unguiculate	adj	clawed, having nails/claws	AHD/W7
	unguis	n	nail, claw, hoof	AHD
	ungulate	adj	having hooves	AHD/W7
	ungulate	n	hoofed mammal	AHD/W7
	warnel	n	wart, hard skin tumor	OED
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	neil	n	nail, toenail, fingernail	ASD
Dutch:	nagel	n	nail, toenail, fingernail	TLL
Old Saxon:	nagal	n	nail, toenail, fingernail	ASD
Old High German:	nagal	n	nail, toenail, fingernail	W7
	ungnagal	n	agnail	ASD
German:	Nagel	n.masc	nail, toenail, fingernail	LRC
N-Germanic
Icelandic:	nagl	n	toenail, fingernail	ASD
	nagli	n	(metal) nail	ASD
Danish:	negl	n	nail, toenail, fingernail	TLL
Swedish:	nagel	n	nail, toenail, fingernail	TLL
E-Germanic
Gothic:	ga-nagljan	n	nail, toenail, fingernail	ASD
Italic
Latin:	onyx, onychis	n.masc/fem	onyx	W7
	sardonyx	n.masc/fem	sardonyx, precious stone	W7
	unguiculus	n.masc	little nail	W7
	unguis	n.masc	nail, claw, hoof	W7
	ungula	n.fem	hoof, little nail	W7
Late Latin:	ungulatus	adj	that has a nail/hoof	W7
New Latin:	perionychium	n.neut	tissue bordering toenail/fingernail	W7
	unguiculatus	vb.ptc	with nails	W7
Old French:	onix	n.masc	onyx	W7
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	noga	n.fem	foot	LRC
Hellenic
Greek:	onyx, onychos	n.masc	nail, claw, hoof	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
ptc	=	participle
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
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)

Nearby etyma: previous | next