laurëa

adjective. golden (of hue)

An adjectival form of laurë “gold (light or colour)” (RGEO/62; PE17/61) appearing in its plural form laurië in the Namárië poem from The Lord of the Rings (LotR/377).

Conceptual Development: In the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, the adjectival form of ᴱQ. laure was ᴱQ. laurina “golden” (QL/51), but ᴱQ. laurea “golden” appeared in the English-Qenya Dictionary of the 1920s (PE15/73), and Tolkien seems to have used that form thereafter.

laurëa

golden, like gold

laurëa adj. "golden, like gold"; pl. laurië is attested (Nam, RGEO:66)

laurë

noun. gold (light or colour)

A very well-attested noun for “gold (light or colour)”, an element in many names, derived from √(G)LAWAR of the same meaning. This word only refers to “those things which we often call ‘golden’ though they do not much resemble metallic gold: golden light, especially sunlight” (RGEO/62), as opposed to gold as a metal which is malta (PE17/51, 159).

Conceptual Development: This word dates all the way back to the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s, where ᴱQ. laure was the “(magic name of) gold”, derived from the early root ᴱ√LOURI (LT1/100; QL/42, 51), as opposed to ᴱQ. kulu which was ordinary gold (QL/49). The shift towards laure being only light or color seems to have begun in The Etymologies of the 1930s, where ᴹQ. malda was “gold (as metal)” (Ety/SMAL), later Q. malta (as noted above). This use of laurë only for color and light was reaffirmed frequently in Tolkien’s later writings (RGEO/62; Let/308; PE17/159).

laurië

goldenness

laurië noun "goldenness", also used as adv. "goldenly" (PE17:74); the word laurië occurring in Namarië Tolkien variously interpreted either as this adverb or as the pl. form of laurëa, q.v.

laurina

golden

laurina adj. "golden" (LT1:258). Compare laurëa in later material.