mirwa adj. "precious, valuable" (PE17:37)
Primitive elvish
-iti
suffix. habit or special association with the verbal action
Quenya
-itë
suffix. adjectival ending; [with verbs] capable of doing, generally (and naturally) doing
mirwa
precious, valuable
Sindarin
mair
adjective. precious
Beware, older languages below! The languages below were invented during Tolkien's earlier period and should be used with caution. Remember to never, ever mix words from different languages!
Early Primitive Elvish
iti
root. peck, bite (of flies), annoy
A root in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s glossed “peck, bite (of flies), annoy” with derivatives like ᴱQ. itisya- “to itch, irritate” and ᴱQ. itse “small fly” (QL/43). The Gnomish word for “fly”, G. sitha, was probably related (GL/68). There are no signs of this root in Tolkien’s later writing, and the word for “fly” became Q. pupso/S. budhu (PE19/101). However, I think it is worth postulating a Neo-Eldarin root ᴺ√ITITH to salvage early Qenya words for itch and annoy.
iti Speculative
root. precious
A hypothetical root to explain words in the Gnomish Lexicon such as G. idra “dear, valued, precious” and G. idril “sweetheart”, the latter being the earliest etymology of the name G. Idril (GL/50). For the later etymologies of this name and the possible conceptual evolution of the root, see the entries for √IR “desire” and √IT “glitter, shine, shimmer, twinkle”.
Early Quenya
itis
noun. a fly bite
The word ᴱQ. itis “a fly bite” appeared in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s derived from the early root ᴱ√ITI “peck, bite (of flies), annoy” (QL/43). Tolkien first wrote this form as itis(s-) implying a stem form of itiss-, but he erased the second s and wrote “(-s)” separately, which seems to imply a stem form of itis-.
Neo-Quenya: I would adapt this word as ᴺQ. itis [þ] based on the Neo-Root ᴺ√ITITH, chosen to preserve Late Quenya s in all forms, and extend its meaning to include both “fly bite” and “✱itch” based on the adjective itisin “itching”.
Old Noldorin
mirya
adjective. precious
A suffix for adjective formation, dating all the way back to Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s. When used with verbs, it has the more specific meaning “capable of doing, generally (and naturally) doing”, as in active cenítë “able to see” vs. passive cénima “visible, able to be seen”, both from cen- “to see”. The verbal use of this suffix was first described in the Quenya Verbal System (QVS) from 1948 (PE22/111), and was described again in Late Notes on Verb Structure (LVS) from 1969 (PE22/155).
When used with a verb, the suffix was preceded by the base vowel of the verb: i, e, a, o, u. This produced various diphthongs, and in the case of ei usually had [[q|[ei] becoming [ī]]]. The basic examples Tolkien gave were tirítë “watchful, vigilant, ✱apt to watch”, cenítë “able to see”, caraitë “active, busy, ✱apt to do”, coloitë “capable of bearing, tolerant (of), enduring”, and yuluitë “drinking (as a habit), ✱aquatic”.
Conceptual Development: As a general adjective suffix, there was a variant ᴱQ. -voite that was quite common in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, also appearing in ᴹQ. hanuvoite “✱masculine” in The Etymologies of the 1930s (Ety/INI), but not thereafter. In Tolkien’s earlier writings, -itë had no specific verbal function, and ᴱQ. -alka, -elka, -olka was the suffix meaning “able to” in notes on The Qenya Verb Forms from the 1920s (VT14/33). This earlier verbal suffix also varied in form depending on the base vowel of the verb.