The name of the plain of Ard-galen after it was devastated by the fires of Morgoth, translated “Gasping Dust” (S/150). The name includes of faug “thirsty” and lith “dust” (SA/faug, lith). Its initial element may be an intensive prefix, the equivalent of Q. an-, with “gasping” an intensive form of “thirsty”.
Conceptual Development: In the earliest Silmarillion drafts, the site of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears was named ᴱN. Niniach (SM/4), but later in the 1930s Tolkien revised the name to N. Fauglith (LR/289). In The Etymologies, this name was translated as “Thirsty Sand” but otherwise had essentially the same derivation as given above, missing only the intensive prefix (Ety/LIT, PHAU).
and (“great”) + faug (“thirst“) + lith (“ash, sand, dust”).