Quenya 

nuinë

suffix. river

Element in

  • ᴺQ. nuinerocco “hippopotamus, (lit.) river-horse”

nuinë

river (of large volume, and liable to flooding)

nuinë noun "river (of large volume, and liable to flooding)". The word is said to be archaic, surviving chiefly in topographical names. It comes from earlier duine, hence appearing in that form in a name like Nunduinë (VT48:30-31), apparently also Anduinë (q.v.) Tolkien struck out the paragraph where nuinë occurs, but the names Nunduinë/Anduinë would suggest that the word as such is conceptually valid.

Nunduinë

west-flow

Nunduinë noun *"West-flow", name of a river in Númenor (UT:168). Compare nuinë. Since this comes from earlier duine, the name appears with the d intact following n: The initial element of Nunduinë is #nún, q.v.

-duinë

-duinë

-duinë, see nuinë, Nunduinë

-duinë

suffix. (large) river

-(n)duinë

suffix. (large) river

An element in several river names such as Q. Anduinë and Q. Nunduinë, the equivalent of S. duin. It did not survive as an independent word in Quenya:

> Common Eldarin bases DUY and LUY, for instance, were distinct. DUY meant “to flood, drench, inundate”, but LUY was the base of words for “blue”. Both would become LUY in Quenya. Which probably accounts for the disappearance from Quenya of C.E. ✱duinē “large river (liable to flood surrounding land)” seen in [S.] Anduin “long river” and Baranduin “brown river”: it became identical with [Q.] luine adj. “blue” (VT48/23).

In fact, its use in Quenya river names may have been a later loan from Sindarin.

Conceptual Development: In one place Tolkien did consider the suffix’s survival as an archaic independent Quenya noun †nuine, but Tolkien rejected the note where it appeared, replacing it with the above (VT48/30 note #2).

Cognates

  • S. duin “(large) river, (large) river; [N.] water” ✧ RC/765; VT48/30
  • T. duinë “(large) river” ✧ VT48/30

Derivations

  • duinē “(large) river” ✧ RC/766
    • DUY “flow (strongly), flood, drench, inundate, pour” ✧ RC/766; VT48/23; VT48/24

Element in

Phonetic Developments

DevelopmentStagesSources
duinē > luine[duinē] > [luinē] > [luine]✧ RC/766

Variations

  • luine ✧ RC/766 (luine)
  • nuine ✧ VT48/30 (nuine)
Quenya [RC/766; VT48/30] Group: Eldamo. Published by

luimë

flood

luimë noun "flood" (VT48:23, 30; the additional glosses "floodwater, flooded land" were struck out, VT48:30), "flood, high tide" (VT48:24, 30). According to VT48:30, partially illegible glosses in Tolkien's manuscript may also suggest that luimë can be used for any tide, or for the spring tide (the maximum tide just after a new or full moon).

ulundë

flood

ulundë noun "flood" (ULU), possibly in the sense of (great) river.% Cf. nuinë, oloirë.

nen

river

nen noun "river" (LT1:248), "river, water" (LT1:262) (In Tolkien's later Quenya, nén with a long vowel means "water", but hardly "river" - that is sírë.)

celusindi

river

celusindi _("k")_noun "river" (LT1:257; hardly a valid word in Tolkien's later Quenya, where the terms sírë and sirya appear instead)

sindi

river

sindi noun "river" (LT1:265; rather sírë in LotR-style Quenya)

sirya

river

#sirya noun "river", attested in the dual form siryat (VT47:11). Compare sírë.

sír

river

sír noun "river", shorter form of sirë (PE17:65, VT49:17)

sír(ë)

noun. river, river, [ᴱQ.] stream

The most common Quenya word for “river”, derived from the root √SIR “flow”.

Conceptual Development: This word first appeared as ᴱQ. sīre “stream” as a derivative of ᴱ√SIŘI [SIÐI] (QL/84), and this form and gloss also appeared in the contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa (PME/84). The form ᴹQ. siri- “river” appeared in the Declension of Nouns (DN) from the early 1930s, along with uninflected sire with short i and various inflected forms with siry- (PE21/10). The form sīre “river” with long ī appeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s as a derivative of ᴹ√SIR “flow” (Ety/SIR; EtyAC/SIR). In several notes from the mid-1960s, it appeared in monosyllabic form sír (PE17/65) or sīr (VT49/17), but it had dual form siryat from the late 1960s implying a stem form of sirĭ- and a development similar to that of DN from the early 1930s (VT47/11).

Neo-Eldarin: Its form síre is probably better known and more commonly used in Neo-Quenya. For example this is the typical form in Helge Fauskanger’s NQNT (NQNT).

Cognates

  • S. sîr “river, stream”

Derivations

  • SIR “flow”

Element in

Variations

  • sír ✧ PE17/065
  • sīr ✧ VT49/17
Quenya [PE17/065; VT47/11; VT49/17] Group: Eldamo. Published by

sírë

river

sírë noun "river" (SIR, VT46:13), "stream" (LT1:265). Also short form sír, q.v.Compare #sirya.

lúto

flood

lúto noun "flood" (LT1:249)

hlóna

river, especially given to those at all seasons full of water from mountains

[hlóna (2) noun "a river, especially given to those at all seasons full of water from mountains" (VT48:27; the word is marked with a query and the note containing it rejected; it was apparently replaced by lón, q.v.)]