A word for “body” widely used in a variety of documents from 1958-59, derived from primitive ✶srawā based on the root √SRAW (MR/350). This word and derivation was mentioned again in notes from 1968 (VT47/35). In one place Tolkien used hroa metaphorically for the “the ‘flesh’ or physical matter of Arda” (MR/399), but as noted by Christopher Tolkien, Tolkien elsewhere used {orma >>} erma for “physical matter” (MR/406 note #2).
Conceptual Development: In early 1958 versions of the documents mentioned above, Tolkien used hrondo for “body”, a term he introduced in Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957 as a derivative of √SRON (PE17/183). But in the typescript version of Laws and Customs of the Eldar from 1958, he generally struck through hrondo and replaced it with hröa (MR/209, 217), which is the form he stuck with thereafter.
hroa (sometimes spelt "hröa")noun "body" (changed by Tolkien from hrondo, in turn changed from hrón). The word hroa comes from earlier ¤srawa(VT47:35). Pl. hroar is attested (MR:304, VT39:30). In MR:330, Tolkien notes that hroa is "roughly but not exactly equivalent to 'body' " (as opposed to "soul"). The Incarnates live by necessary union of hroa (body) and fëa (soul) (WJ:405). Hroafelmë "body-impulse" (impulses provided by the body, e.g. physical fear, hunger, thirst, sexual desire) (VT41:19 cf. 13)