I have come across beam as well, which means 'tree' and is why Quickbeam was such a hasty ent. Speaking of ent, it is the word for 'giant' so of course the ents had to be large. Flet is floor. Mearh is horse. Beorn has 'bee' as a root, as well as meaning 'chief', so he must be a leader and there would be some large bees at his home. Wine means 'friend'. Brandywine. Huru! (Indeed!)
Last week, on my word list to learn was a verb- asmeagian, to investigate, devise, examine, elicit. Sounds like Smeagol. Then, when we were going over the vocabulary list, my prof made some Gollum noises and said that this verb is where Tolkien got the name from. The inside joke is that, when Sam was calling him a sneak, it really was his name. The suffix -ol is added to a verb to create a noun much like in Latin when -ator is added to gladius (sword) to create gladiator.
So this brings me to Thingol. Thing + ol. Hmmm. What was Thingol up to off in his cave? It explains much that is strange about Legolas. Does it not?
7 comments:
LOL that's why I simply love finding the roots of different words - you might come acros something really funny!
Etymology rules!
http://www.etymonline.com/
Makes you view Tolkien in a whole new light!
Of course you realize that thing is a noun not a verb.
Oh, that's good. :)) I love seeing how authors come up with their names--and it's usually deliberate!
Of course you realize that thing is a noun not a verb
You mean "thing" can be also a verb? Even my big fat dictionary failed to provide that meaning of the word!
I have two Anglo Saxon dictionaries that define the verbs thingan - to invite or thrive - or thingian - to beg, pray, ask, intercede, harangue, determine, settle, prescribe.
'th' is represented by runes 'thorn' or 'eth' which does not appear on the blogger fonts so I can't type them.
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