tië noun "path, course, line, direction, way" (TE3, VT47:11); pl. tier in Namárië(Nam, RGEO:67); tielyanna "upon your path" (UT:22 cf. 51; tie-lya-nna "path-your-upon")
Quenya
tië
noun. path, road, way, line, path, road, way, line, [ᴹQ.] course, direction, [ᴱQ.] route
tië
path, course, line, direction, way
-tië
suffix. verbal suffix
tier
path
tier is, besides the pl. form of tië "path" above, an ephemeral word for "so", abandoned by Tolkien in favour of tambë (VT43:17)
nut-
verb. tie
nut- vb. "tie" (1st pers. aorist nutin "I tie") (NUT)
lúvuta-
verb. to tie a bow
A neologism for “tie a bow” coined by Laiqua posted on 2026-04-18 in the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord Server (VLDS), a verb form of lúvu “bow (knot with two loops)”.
imbi menel cemenyë menë ráno tië
between Heaven and Earth goes the path of the Moon
omentië
noun. meeting (of pathways), (lit.) coming together of journey-path, meeting or junction of the directions of two people
-ya
suffix. verbal suffix
londa
path
[londa noun "path"], changed by Tolkien to londë noun "road (in sea)" (VT45:28)
This was the basic Quenya word for “path” for most of Tolkien’s life. This word dates all the way back to ᴱQ. tie “line, direction, route, road” under the early root ᴱ√TEHE “pull” (QL/90). In Early Qenya Word-lists Tolkien revised {ᴱQ. tie} “path” to kie (PE16/143), and in the Declension of Nouns from the early 1930s, the form was tē “path” (PE21/40). These seem to have been temporary ideas since by The Etymologies of the 1930s the form was again ᴹQ. tie “path, course, line, direction, way” under the root {ᴹ√TEƷ >>} ᴹ√TEÑ “line, direction” (Ety/TEƷ).
Its most notable appearance in Tolkien’s later writings was in the Namárië poem, within the phrase ar ilyë __tier__ undulávë lumbulë “and all paths are drowned deep in shadow” (LotR/377). In green-ink revisions to the Outline of Phonology (OP2) from around 1970, Tolkien derived tie from primitive ✶tegē “line, road” (PE19/71); in this document the root √TEG was glossed “line”, as opposed to √TEÑ “signify” (PE19/97).
Neo-Quenya: The word tie had many possible translations, such as “path, road” (PE17/13), “road, way” (PE17/72), or “line, direction” (Ety/TEƷ). I believe its basic meaning is “✱line of travel” (not necessarily straight), and can refer to both the path or road travelled upon as well as the way or route of the travel itself. For a simple “straight line”, I would use the related word [ᴹQ.] tea.