| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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Appendix I
Indo-European Roots |
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| ENTRY: | bher-2 |
| DEFINITION: | Bright, brown. 1. Suffixed variant form *bhr -no-. a. brown, from Old English brn, brown; b. bruin, from Middle Dutch bruun; c. brunet, burnet, burnish, from Old French brun, shining, brown. a–c all from Germanic *brnaz. 2. Reduplicated form *bhibhru-, *bhebhru-, “the brown animal,” beaver. beaver1, from Old English be(o)for, beaver, from Germanic *bebruz. 3. bear2, from Old English bera, bear, from Germanic *ber , “the brown animal,” bear. 4. berserker, from Old Norse björn, bear, from Germanic *bernuz. (Pokorny 5. bher- 136.) |
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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