Primitive elvish
rot
root. cave; delve underground, dig, excavate, tunnel, [ᴹ√] bore; [ᴱ√] hollow, delve underground, dig, excavate, tunnel, [ᴹ√] bore; [ᴱ√] hollow; [√]cave
Derivatives
- ✶grottā “(large) excavation, underground dwelling” ✧ VT39/09; WJ/414; WJ/415
- Q. hróta “dwelling underground, artificial cave or rockhewn hall” ✧ PM/365
- ᴺQ. rotsë “pipe, tube”
- ᴺQ. rotta- “to bore (a hole or tunnel)”
- Q. rotto “small grot, tunnel, tunnel, small grot, [ᴹQ.] cave” ✧ PM/365
- S. groth “large excavation, delving, underground dwelling, large excavation, delving, underground dwelling; [N.] cave, tunnel, [G.] grot” ✧ PE17/049
- ᴺS. rhûd “dwelling underground, artifical cave, rockhewn hall, mine”
- ᴺS. rod “tube, stem, *pipe”
Variations
- s-rot ✧ PM/352
- rot/s-rot ✧ PM/365
- (g)roto ✧ VT39/09
- rot ✧ VT39/09
- groto ✧ WJ/414; WJ/415
The earliest iteration of this root was ᴱ√ROTO “hollow” from the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, with derivatives like ᴱQ. rotl “cave, hollow” and ᴱQ. rotse “pipe, tube” (QL/80). The primitive root ᴱ√roto also appeared in the contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon with derivatives like G. rod “tube, stem” and G. †roth “cave, grot” (GL/65). The root reappeared as ᴹ√ROT “bore, tunnel” as a late addition to The Etymologies of the 1930s that Christopher Tolkien omitted from the published version of The Lost Road; it had with derivatives ᴹQ. rotto/N. (g)roth “cave, tunnel” (EtyAC/ROT), and was also an element in the name N. Nogrod (EtyAC/NAUK).
The root appeared as √ROT “cave” in notes on Words, Phrases and Passages in the Lord of the Rings from the late 1950s or early 1960s (PE17/49), as ✱groto “dig, excavate, tunnel” in the Quendi and Eldar essay of 1959-60 (WJ/414), as unglossed (g)roto in other notes associated with that document (VT39/9) and as rot, s-rot “delve underground, excavate, tunnel” in notes associated with The Shibboleth of Fëanor from 1968 (PM/365 note #56). Thus in later writings the root √ROT had variants √GROT and √SROT.
Neo-Eldarin: For purposes of Neo-Eldarin I would ignore the gloss “cave” which seems to be a loose translation, and stick with the meaning “excavate, tunnel, bore” for the root √ROT; I’d also retain the meaning “hollow” from the 1910s to allow salvaging similar early words from the Qenya and Gnomish Lexicon.