Primitive elvish
lok
root. bend, loop, bend, loop, [ᴱ√] twine, twist, curl; [ᴹ√] great serpent, dragon
Derivatives
- Ad. lôkho “bent, crooked”
- ✶(s)lōkō “reptile, snake, worm” ✧ PE17/160
- Q. hlócë “reptile, snake, serpant, worm, reptile, snake, serpant, worm, *lizard; [ᴹQ.] dragon” ✧ SA/lok
- ᴺQ. loc- “to bend”
- Q. lócë “bight, bend, curl of hair” ✧ PE17/160
- Q. locin “bent” ✧ PE17/160
- ᴺQ. lolóca- “to crawl”
- S. lhûg “reptile, snake, serpent, worm, reptile, snake, serpent, worm, *lizard; [N.] dragon” ✧ SA/lok
- ᴺS. loera- “to stoop, bow, cower; to submit”
- ᴺS. loeth “twist, tendril, spiral, coil”
- ᴺS. loetha- “to curl, bend, wind, twine, tie knot, tangle”
- ᴺS. lonc “curl”
- ᴺS. lûg “bend, loop, wind, twist; guile, deceit”
Element in
- ᴺS. logweg “meandering, twisting, winding, intricate, (lit.) apt to bend”
Variations
- LOK- ✧ PE17/145
- lok- ✧ SA/lok
lub
root. bend
Derivatives
- Q. lúva “bow (in forming tengwar), bight, bend, curve” ✧ PE17/122
Variations
- LUB ✧ PE17/122; PE17/161
A root having to do with bending things, whose most notable derivatives are Q. (h)lócë/S. lhûg “snake, serpent, reptile, worm”. The first appearance of this root was as ᴱ√LOKO “twine, twist, curl” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s (QL/55), and in this period it had derivatives like ᴱQ. lóke “snake” and G. ulug “dragon”, but also derivatives like G. log- “curl, bend, wind, twine” and G. lonc “curl” (QL/55; GL/54).
In The Etymologies of the 1930s, however, ᴹ√LOK was glossed “great serpent, dragon”, and all its derivatives were dragon words based on ᴹQ. lóke and N. lhûg (Ety/LOK). In this period the “curl” words might have been allocated to the unglossed root ᴹ√LOKH which had derivatives like N. lhoch “ringlet” as well as ᴹQ. lokse and N. lhaws “hair”, so perhaps meaning “✱curl (of hair)” (Ety/LOKH). In notes from the late 1950s, Tolkien again generalized the meaning of the root √LOK to “bend, loop”, with additional non-serpent derivatives like Q. lokin “bent” and Q. lōke “bight, bend, curl of hair” (PE17/160); thus √LOK may have (re)absorbed the meanings of ᴹ√LOKH.