erma noun "physical matter" (MR:338, 470)
Quenya
erma
noun. (physical) matter
erma
physical matter
orma
physical matter
orma noun "physical matter" (MR:218, 231, 471)
orma
noun. (physical) matter
ermaitë
adjective. concrete, material
A neologism coined by Arael posted on 2023-12-15 in the Vinyë Lambengolmor Discord Server (VLDS), an adjectival form of erma “(physical) matter”.
ermangolmë
noun. study of matter, physics, [possibly also] chemistry
@@@ Discord 2022-01-12; since in Arda physics and chemistry didn't (necessarily) have different origins developing form philosophy and alchemy respectively, perhaps not the same distinction was drawn.
hrón
flesh/substance of arda
hrón noun "flesh/substance of Arda", "matter" (PE17:183), also at one point used = hroa "body", q.v. Compare erma.
A word for “matter” in notes from around 1959 (MR/338, 349). In context Tolkien said the Elves “held that all things or ‘makings’, that is constructed (however simply and incipiently) from basic ‘matter’, which they called erma, were impermanent, within Ea.” In the book The Nature of Middle Earth, Carl Hostetter argued that this Elvish notion of matter was similar to Aristotelian undifferentiated “prime matter”, the raw substance from which all things that exist were formed (NM/171-172, 407). This word seems to be a combination of √ER “one, single, alone” + ✶-mā “thing”, which also fits the notion of an Elvish concept that matter is the prime substance from which all things are constructed.
Conceptual Development: In Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957, Tolkien gave Q. hrón “flesh/substance of Arda, matter” which was derived from srōn < √SRON, a root variation of √RON “solid, tangible, firm”. In the 1959 notes mentioned above, the word hrón “matter” was revised to orma (MR/218, 231 note #26) and finally to erma (MR/338, 359 note #14), as described above.
In the essay Laws and Customs of the Eldar from 1958, the forms hrón and rhón were instead given the sense “body”, but that sense was reassigned to hrondo, later revised to hröa “body” (MR/229 note #16, 231 note #25).