Several Indo-European words for ‘dense’ and their etymologies

Abstract

The article offers an etymological analysis of some of the Indo-European nominal formations with a meaning ‘dense’ and similar or derived meanings such as ‘thick’, ‘tight’ or ‘frequent’. The Proto-Indo-European roots that are discussed include *temk- ‘to join, coagulate, solidify’, *tum- ‘to swell, become thick’, *(s)tegw- ‘firm, impenetrable’ and the compound *dbh-(h2)mǵh- ‘dense, frequent’. The majority of words discussed are Baltic, Slavic and Germanic, but the discussion necessarily involves the etymologies of words in the other branches of Indo-European as well.