(i vess, construct bes) (woman), pl. biss (i miss). The word bess was later used = ”woman” (in general).
Sindarin
gweth-
verb. *to report
bess
noun. wife, wife; [N.] woman
gwaith
noun. manhood
gwaith
noun. man power, troop of able-bodied men, host, regiment, people
gwaith
noun. region, wilderness
bess
wife
gwaith
manhood
gwaith (i **waith) (manpower, troop of able-bodied men, host, regiment, people, region; wilderness), no distinct pl. form except with article (in gwaith**)
gwaith
manhood
(i ’waith) (manpower, troop of able-bodied men, host, regiment, people, region; wilderness), no distinct pl. form except with article (in gwaith)
herves
wife
- herves (i cherves, o cherves), pl. hervis (i chervis), coll. pl. hervessath, 2) archaic bess (i vess, construct bes) (woman), pl. biss (i miss). The word bess was later used = ”woman” (in general).
herves
wife
(i cherves, o cherves), pl. hervis (i chervis), coll. pl. hervessath
A word for “wife” appearing in the King’s Letter written towards the end of the 1940s (SD/129).
Conceptual Development: This word dates all the way back to G. bess “wife” from the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s, where it was a derivative of the early root ᴱ√Beđ (GL/22). In Early Noldorin Word-lists, Tolkien changed ᴱN. {bess >>} gweth “wife” based on the modified root ᴱ√wed- (PE13/139, 146); it also had a negated form ᴱN. urweth “without wife” (PE13/156). In The Etymologies of the 1930s Tolkien restored N. bess, now a derivative of the root ᴹ√BES “wed” (Ety/BES). However in that document the sense “†wife” was archaic, and it has come to mean “woman” in modern speech, replacing archaic N. †dî “woman” (Ety/BES, NDIS, NĪ¹). In the scenario of The Etymologies, the normal word for “wife” was herves (Ety/BES, KHER). However, in the late-1940s King’s Letter, it seems the sense “wife” was restored to bess.
At some point in the mid-to-late 1960s, Tolkien changed the root for marriage words from ᴹ√BES to √BER (VT49/45), apparently motivated by a need to deal with some etymological problems with the name S. Elbereth. Indeed, in The Road Goes Ever On from 1967, Tolkien said S. bereth meant “spouse”, also “used of one who is queen as spouse of a king” (RGEO/66). This calls into question the continued validity of bess from ᴹ√BES.
Neo-Sindarin: For purposes of Neo-Sindarin, I prefer to retain the root ᴹ√BES for marriage words; see that entry for further details. I’d therefore keep bess, but I recommend using it only in the sense “wife”. For “woman” I’d use dî, much as I recommend using S. dîr for “man” over N. benn, which had similar conceptual developments.