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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: pi-lo- 'hair, pile, pilus'

Semantic Field: Hair

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	pluccian/ploccan	vb.wk	to pluck, tear	W7/ASD
Middle English:	catyrpel	n	caterpillar	W7
	peluche	n	plush	W7
	pile	n	pile, hair, plumage	ODE
	piles	n.pl	piles	W7
	pillage	n	pillage	W7
	plucken	vb	to pluck	W7
English:	caterpillar	n	elongated wormlike larva of moth/butterfly	AHD/W7
	depilate	vb.trans	to remove hair from	AHD/W7
	horripilation	n	goosebumps, hair bristling from fear/cold	AHD
	pelage	n	hairy covering of mammal	AHD/W7
	pilar	adj	covered with hair, re: hair	AHD
	pile	n	coat/surface of close fine furry hairs	AHD/W7
	piles	n.pl	hemorrhoids	AHD/W7
	pileus	n	umbrella-shaped fungal fruiting body	AHD/W7
	piliferous	adj	bearing/producing hair	AHD
	pillage	n	act of looting/plundering	AHD/W7
	pilocarpine	n	alkaloid isolated from pilocarpus	AHD/CDC
	pilocarpus	n	genus of polypetalous shrubs	CDC
	pilose	adj	covered with soft hair	AHD/W7
	pilus	n	hair, hairlike structure	AHD
	pluck	vb	to pull off, pick out	AHD/W7
	plush	n	fabric with long even pile	AHD/W7
	poilu	n	French soldier	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Middle Dutch:	pijl	n	pile, fine hair	ODE
Dutch:	plukken	vb	to pluck	ASD
Middle Low German:	pile	n	downy plumage	ODE
Middle High German:	pflücken	vb	to pluck	ASD
German:	pflücken	vb	to pluck	LRC
N-Germanic
Icelandic:	plokka/plukka	vb	to pluck	ASD
Italic
Latin:	depilatus	vb.ptc	depilated	W7
	depilo, depilāre	vb	to remove hair	W7
	pila	n.fem	ball (to play with)	W7
	pilleum	n.neut	felt cap	W7
	pil(l)eus	n.masc	felt cap	W7
	pilosus	adj	hairy	W7
	pilus	n.masc	hair	W7
New Latin:	pileus	n.masc	fungal fruit	W7
Portuguese:	pelo	n.masc	hair	ODE
Spanish:	pelo	n.masc	hair	ODE
Old French:	poil	n	(type of) cloth, fabric	ODE
Old North French:	catepelose	n.masc	hairy cat	W7
Anglo-French:	pyle/peil	n	(type of) cloth, fabric	ODE
Middle French:	peille	n.fem	rag	W7
	pelage	n.masc	fur	W7
	pillage	n.masc	looting	W7
	piller	vb	to plunder	W7
	poil	n.masc	hair	W7
	poilu	adj	hairy	W7
French:	pelage	n.masc	fur	W7
	poilu	adj	hairy	W7
Italian:	pelo	n.masc	hair	ODE
Hellenic
Greek:	πῖλος	n.masc	pile, mat; wool, hair	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
pl	=	plural (number)
ptc	=	participle
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)
ASD	=	Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller: An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1898)
CDC	=	W.D. Whitney and B.E. Smith: The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (1889-1911)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
ODE	=	C.T. Onions: The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (1966)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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