holwë

noun. stink

holwë noun "stink" (or *"stench"), *holwëa adj. "stinking". PE13:162 gives holwë "stink", derived from 3olwē; PM13:145 however gives the Q word as olwë and the adj. "stinking" as olwëa, though primitive forms with initial ʒ- (the spirant gh) are presupposed also there. Tolkien later used a system where primitive words in ʒ- yield Quenya forms in h-, as demonstrated by relevant entries in the Etymologies, so we prefer holwë to olwë (which would also clash with the later personal name Olwë, unlikely to mean "stink"), and we similarly read *holwëa rather than olwëa as the adj. "stinking". In Etym, the root ÑOL seems to represent a later experiment with similar words having to do with smell, and once again we observe shifting conceptions as to whether the Quenya words should show initial h- or not; in this conception the initial consonant in Primitive Elvish was ñ- rather than ʒ-.

* thosta

stink

(vb.) thosta- (VT46:19)

thosta-

verb. to stink