Meaning: water

Represented in 160 languages with 14 cognate sets.

Illustrative Context

She was thirsty, so she drank some water.

Target Sense

  • The most generic, basic and default noun for water.
  • In many languages this will be the same term as used in the traditional Classical concept of the four ‘elements’, i.e. water as opposed to earth, air and fire.
  • Avoid terms that refer specifically to either fresh or salt water (e.g. brine).
  • Most languages have a single basic cover term for water, applicable to both fresh and salt water, but not limited and specific to either of them.
  • If your language, unusually, has no general cover term, but only two mutually incompatible terms for fresh and salt water respectively, then select the word that refers to fresh water.
  • Similarly, as per general IE-CoR policies, avoid narrow terms in any other senses too, e.g. specifically drinking water, or terms for a natural body of water like a lake, river or sea.

Cognate sets for meaning: water

Id <span style="white-space:nowrap;">IE-CoR ref. form&nbsp;</span> <span style="white-space:nowrap;">IE-CoR ref. lang.&nbsp;</span> # clades # lexemes loan? pll loan? pll deriv.? ideoph.? loan src lang. src lex cogset. Details

Lexeme Details

Language Lexeme Phonetic Phonemic Cognate set loan? pll loan? Source lang