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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: u̯l̥k^u̯os 'wolf, lobo'

Semantic Field: Wolf

Indo-European Reflexes:

Family/Language	Reflex(es)	PoS/Gram.	Gloss	Source(s)
English
Old English:	Bēowulf	prop.n.masc	Bear, lit. bee-wolf	LRC
	here-wulf	n.masc	warrior, lit. war-wolf	ASD
	werwulf	n.masc	werewolf, lit. man-wolf	LRC
	wulf	n.masc	wolf	W7
	Wulfred	prop.n.masc	Wulfred	LRC
Middle English:	lupine	n	lupine	W7
	werewolf	n	werewolf	W7
	wolf	n	wolf	W7
English:	aardwolf	n	carrion-eating SE African mammal	AHD/W7
	alyssum	n	Old World herb in mustard family	AHD/W7
	Gárulf	prop.n	Rohan rider in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	lobo	n	wolf	AHD/W7
	lupine	adj	wolfish	AHD/W7
	lupine	n	leguminous herb	AHD/W7
	lupus	n	disease involving skin lesions	AHD/W7
	lycanthrope	n	person believing self to be wolf	AHD/W7
	Lycia	prop.n	ancient SW Anatolian country	AHD
	lytta	n	fibrous/cartilaginous rod in carnivorous mammal's tongue	AHD/W7
	robalo	n	snook, tropical marine food fish	AHD
	Ulfilas	prop.n	Gothic Bible translator	LRC
	werewolf	n	lycanthrope, lit. man-wolf	AHD/W7
	Wolf	prop.n	huge dog in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	wolf	n	large canine mammal	AHD/W7
	wolfram	n	tungsten	AHD/W7
	wolframite	n	tungsten ore	W7
	Wolf-rider	prop.n	ally of Saruman in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
	Wulf	prop.n	Rohan enemy in Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings	LRC
W-Germanic
Dutch:	wolf	n	wolf	TLL
Afrikaans:	aardwolf	n	aardwolf	W7
Old Saxon:	wulf	n.masc	wolf	ASD
Old High German:	werwolf	n	werewolf	W7
	wolf	n.masc	wolf	W7/ASD
German:	Werwolf	n.masc	werewolf	LRC
	Wolf	n.masc	wolf	W7
N-Germanic
Old Norse:	ulfa-hamr	n.masc	wolf-hame	LRC
Old Icelandic:	ulfr	n	wolf	LRC
Icelandic:	ulfr	n.masc	wolf	ASD
Danish:	ulv	n	wolf	TLL
E-Germanic
Gothic:	Wulfila	prop.n.dim	Ulfilas, lit. little wolf	LRC
	wulfs	n.masc	wolf	ASD
Italic
Latin:	alysson	n	(kind of) madder	AHD
	lupinus/lupinum	n.masc/neut	lupin	W7
	lupinus	adj	wolfish	W7
	lupus	n.masc	wolf	W7
Medieval Latin:	lupus	n.masc	wolf; the disease lupus	W7
New Latin:	alyssum	n.neut	alyssum	W7
	lycanthropus	n.masc	werewolf, lycanthrope	W7
Spanish:	lobo	n.masc	wolf	W7
Baltic
Lithuanian:	vílkas	n	wolf	LRC
Latvian:	vìlks	n	wolf	LRC
Slavic
Old Church Slavonic:	vlŭkŭ	n	wolf	LRC
Russian:	volčlca	n	wolf	LRC
Albanian
Albanian:	ujk	n	wolf	LRC
Hellenic
Homeric Greek:	ἀλύσσω	vb	to be frenzied	LRC
	Λῠκία	prop.n.fem	Lycia (land of wolf-people)	LS
	λύκος	n.masc	wolf	LRC
	λύσσα	n.fem	(martial) rage	LRC
Greek:	alysson	n.neut	plant thought to cure rabies	W7
	alyssos	adj	curing rabies	W7
	lykanthrōpos	n.masc	werewolf, lit. wolf-man	W7
	Λύκιος	n.masc	Lycius	LRC
	lyssa	n	rabies	W7
	lytta	n.fem	rabies, madness	W7
Anatolian
Hittite:	lukka	n	(land of) wolf-people	LRC
	ulippana	n	wolf	LRC
Armenian
Armenian:	gayl	n	wolf	LRC
Iranian
Avestan:	vəhrko	n	wolf	LRC
Indic
Sanskrit:	vŕ̥kas	n	wolf	LRC

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

Abbrev.		Meaning
adj	=	adjective
dim	=	diminutive
fem	=	feminine (gender)
masc	=	masculine (gender)
n	=	noun
neut	=	neuter (gender)
prop	=	proper
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
LS	=	Liddell and Scott: Greek-English Lexicon, 7th-9th ed's (1882-1940), rev.
TLL	=	Frederick Bodmer: The Loom of Language (1944)
W7	=	Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963)

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