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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: 2. ser- 'to serve, guard, protect, shelter'

Semantic Field: to Save, Preserve, Keep Safe

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	searu/searo	n.fem	art, skill; wile, deceit; arms, armor	ASD
Middle English:	conserven	vb	to conserve	W7
	observen	vb	to observe	W7
	preserven	vb	to preserve	W7
	reserven	vb	to reserve	W7
	servant	n	servant	W7
	serven	vb	to serve	W7
English:	conserve	vb.trans	to preserve, keep in safe/sound state	AHD/W7
	hero	n	legendary/mythological figure endowed with great strength/ability	AHD/W7
	observe	vb	to conform one's action/practice to	AHD/W7
	preserve	vb	to protect, keep safe from harm/injury/destruction	AHD/W7
	reserve	vb.trans	to store for future/special use	AHD/W7
	reservoir	n	place where something is stored	AHD/W7
	Saradoc	prop.n	Merry's father in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Saruman	prop.n	treacherous white wizard in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	servant	n	one who performs duties for others	LRC
	serve	vb	to render service, be a servant	LRC
W-Germanic
Old High German:	gi-sarwi/gi-sarwa	n	armor, equipment	ASD
	saro	n	art, skill; wile, deceit; arms, armor	ASD
N-Germanic
Icelandic:	sörvi	n	necklace; armor	ASD
E-Germanic
Gothic:	sarwa	n.neut	art, skill; wile, deceit; arms, armor	ASD
Italic
Latin:	conservo, conservāre	vb	to guard, observe	W7
	heros	n.masc	hero, demi-god	W7
	observo, observare	vb	to guard, watch, observe	W7
	reservo, reservāre	vb	to keep back	W7
	serviō, servīre, servīvī, servītum	vb	to serve, be a slave	LRC
	servitium, servitii	n.neut	servitude	LRC
	servitus, servitutis	n.fem	servitude, slavery	LRC
	servō, servāre, servāvī, servātum	vb	to guard, keep, watch	LRC
	servus, servi	n.masc	slave, servant	LRC
Late Latin:	praeservo, praeservāre	vb	to observe beforehand	W7
Medieval Latin:	praeservō, praeservāre	vb	to guard, preserve	W7
Old French:	servir	vb	to serve	W7
Middle French:	conserver	vb	to conserve	W7
	observer	vb	to observe	W7
	préserver	vb	to preserve	W7
	réserver	vb	to reserve, keep back	W7
	réservoir	n.masc	reservoir	W7
French:	héros	n	hero	TLL
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	xraniti, xranǫ, xraniši	vb	to guard, protect	LRC
Hellenic
Greek:	ἥρως	n.masc	hero	LRC
Iranian
Avestan:	haurvaiti	vb	to guard	W7

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
trans	=	transitive
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
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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