ber

noun. valiant man, warrior

A noun meaning “valiant man, warrior” developed from primitive ᴹ✶berō (Ety/BER) after the primitive final vowel vanished in Ilkorin.

bereth

noun. valor

A rejected noun meaning “valor” developed from the root ᴹ√BER (Ety/BER), perhaps from a primitive form ✱✶berette. The word was probably rejected when Elbereth change from an Ilkorin to a Noldorin name.

galbreth

noun. beech

A Doriathrin (and Falathrin) noun for “beech (tree)”, a combination of gald “tree” and breth “(beech) mast” (Ety/GALAD, BERÉTH). The second element originally meant “beech”, but later meant “mast”; this original meaning seems to be preserved in this compound.

neldor

noun. beech

A Doriathrin noun for “beech (tree)”, properly referring to Hirilorn with a true meaning of “three trunks” (Ety/NEL). Tolkien indicated it was a combination of neld “three” and orn “tree”, though it is unclear why the final -n vanished. He marked this derivation with a “?” perhaps because of this uncertainty.

Conceptual Development: Tolkien seems to have coined this word to explain names like Neldoreth. Its most obvious precursor is ᴱQ. neldor (QL/65).

boron

noun/adjective. steadfast; trusty man, faithful vassal

A word meaning “steadfast, trusty man, faithful vassal” developed from the primitive form ᴹ✶bóron- (Ety/BOR). Because the initial syllable was stressed in the primitive form, the initial [bor-] did not reduce to [br-] as it did when the primitive vowel was unstressed. The glosses seem to indicate that it could be used as an adjective “steadfast” or a noun “trusty man, faithful vassal”. However, it is possible that the first part of the gloss is meant to read “steadfast/trusty man”, so that the word is only a noun.

ngorthin

adjective. horrible

A Doriathrin adjective meaning “horrible”, a combination of ngorth “horror” with the adjective suffix -in (Ety/ÑGOROTH).

tóril

noun. queen

A noun for “queen”, a combination of tôr “king” with the feminine suffix -il, though according to Tolkien it was used only as a title for Melian (Ety/TĀ).