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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: sāg- 'to seek, track, trail'

Semantic Field: to Pursue

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
Celtic
Old Irish:	saigid	vb	to seek out, approach, attack	RPN
English
Old English:	forsacan	vb.str	to forsake	W7/ASD
	sacan, sōc, sōcon, sacen	vb.str	to fight, contend; sue, blame, accuse	ASD
	sacu	n.fem	sake; strife, dispute; guilt, lawsuit	ASD
	sēc(e)an, sōhte, sōht	vb.wk.I	to seek, investigate	RPN/ASD
	sōcn	n.fem	inquiry, investigation	RPN/ASD
Middle English:	forsaken	vb	to forsake	W7
	presage	n	presage	W7
	ransaken	vb	to ransack	W7
	sake	n	sake	W7
	seken	vb	to seek	W7
	soc/soke	n	soke	W7
English:	exegesis	n	explanation/critical interpretation of text	AHD/W7
	forsake, forsook, forsaken	vb.str.trans	to renounce, give up	AHD/W7
	Forsaken	prop.n	inn east of Bree in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	hegemony	n	preponderant influence/authority	AHD/W7
	presage	n	omen, something that portends/foreshadows future event	AHD/W7
	ramshackle	adj	rickety, poorly constructed, near disintegration	AHD
	ransack	vb.trans	to search thoroughly	AHD/W7
	sagacious	adj	keen in sense perception	AHD/W7
	sake	n	end, purpose	AHD/W7
	seek, sought	vb	to look/search for, try to find	AHD/OED
	soke	n	jurisdiction over people/territory	AHD/W7
W-Germanic
Old Frisian:	sake/seke	n	sake, cause, ground, reason	ASD
	sēka	vb	to seek	ASD
Old Saxon:	saka	n	sake, cause, ground, reason	ASD
	sakan	vb	to blame, rebuke	ASD
	sōkian	vb	to seek	ASD
Old Low German:	saca	n	sake, cause, ground, reason	ASD
	suocan	vb	to seek	ASD
Old High German:	sahha	n	sake, suit, cause, ground, reason	ASD
	sahhan	vb	to blame, rebuke, dispute	ASD
	sōhni	n	search, inquiry	ASD
	suohhan/suohhen	vb	to seek	RPN/W7
German:	Sache	n.fem	sake, cause, object	LRC
	suchen	vb	to seek	LRC
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	rannsaka	vb	to ransack, plunder	W7
	-saka	vb.sfx	to seek	W7
	sætt	n.fem	reconciliation	LRC
	sætta	vb	to reconcile	LRC
	sǫk	n.fem	sake, cause, reason; lawsuit, dispute	LRC
	sœkja	vb	to seek, fetch; visit; proceed	LRC
Icelandic:	saka	vb.wk	to fight, blame, accuse	ASD
	sókn	n	attack, prosecution; parish, assemblage of people	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	gasakan	vb.str.VI	to rebuke, reprove	LRC
	sakan	vb	to strive, rebuke	ASD
	sakjō	n	strife	ASD
	sōkareis	n	investigator, disputer	RPN
	sōkeins	n	investigation	RPN
	sōkjan	vb	to seek, desire; dispute	RPN
	sōkns	n	search, inquiry	RPN
Italic
Latin:	praesagio, praesagīre	vb	to forebode	W7
	praesagium	n.neut	omen	W7
	sāga	n	wise woman, fortune-teller	RPN
	sāgax, sāgacis	adj	keen, sagacious	LRC
	sāgio, sāgire	vb	to feel keenly, perceive quickly	RPN
	sāgus	adj	prophetic	RPN
Medieval Latin:	soca	n.fem	inquiry, jurisdiction	W7
New Latin:	exegesis	n.fem	exegesis, interpretation	W7
Hellenic
Greek:	exēgeisthai	vb	to explain, interpret	W7
	exēgēsis	n.fem	exegesis	W7
	hēgeisthai	vb	to lead	W7
	ἡγεμονεύω	vb	to govern	LRC
	hēgemonia	n.fem	leadership of one	W7
	ἡγεμών	n.masc	leader	LRC
	hēgemōn	n.masc	leader	W7
	ἡγέομαι	vb.dep	to lead, rule, regard	LRC
	hēdeisthai	vb	to know	W7
Anatolian
Hittite:	šagaiš	n	sign, omen	RPN
	šākiya-	vb	to declare, give a sign	RPN

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
I	=	class 1
VI	=	class 6
adj	=	adjective
dep	=	deponent
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
sfx	=	suffix
str	=	strong (inflection)
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)
LRC	=	Linguistics Research Center, University of Texas, Austin
OED	=	James A.H. Murray et al: The Oxford English Dictionary (1933)
RPN	=	Allan R. Bomhard: Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic (2002)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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