Tom Bombadil
#615
Can the prefix form of that be used as a similative? If so, vē̆- might be an alternative of -ndon. By the way: How should vē̆- be spelled? Is it like vé-?
Gloss “ve” by Eldamo Import
ve
preposition. as, like, similar, after the manner [of], as, like, similar, after the manner [of]; [ᴹQ.] with
Tamas Ferencz
#617
I am not entirely sure that that vē̆- was meant to be a prefix, words like véla and vea suggest that they may be more like a stem/root.
This was the Quenya preposition for “as, like” for much of Tolkien’s life. Its first appearance was all the way back in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s where ᴱQ. ve “as, like” appeared under the early root ᴱ√VĪ “as” (QL/101), though in that document there was another preposition ᴱQ. se or sen “as, like, in manner of” under the root ᴱ√SĒ (QL/82). The preposition ᴱQ. ve was used for “like” in the Oilima Markirya poem from around 1930 (MC/213), but in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) from 1948 was translated as “with” (PE22/119).
In the 1950s and 60s, ve appeared often with the translation “like” or “as”, most notably in the Namárië poem from The Lord of the Rings (LotR/377), the 1960s version of the Markirya poem (MC/222), and the Ambidexters Sentence from 1969 (VT49/6-8). In this period ve was given several different derivations, from ✶wē in 1957 (VT49/10), ✶bē in notes from the late 1950s or early 1960s (VT49/32), and ✶vai in notes from 1968 (VT49/32).