Primitive elvish
lep
root. pick up/out (with the fingers); finger
Derivatives
- ✶lepe “finger” ✧ VT47/10
- ✶leper “finger” ✧ VT44/16
- ✶lepero “finger” ✧ VT47/10; VT47/24
- ✶lepetā “thumb, ‘picker’; finger” ✧ VT47/27
- ᴺQ. lep- “to take [with fingers], *pick, pluck”
- Q. lepetta “Gondorian hardwood”
- ᴺQ. lepsilë “tendril”
- Q. lepta- “to pick (up/out); to finger, feel with the fingertips” ✧ VT44/16; VT47/10; VT47/24
- ᴺS. leb- “to pick, pluck, take or feel or touch with fingers, cull”
- ᴺS. lemma- “to beckon, crook the finger”
- S. leutha- “to pick (up/out)” ✧ VT47/10
- T. lepta- “to pick (up/out); to finger, feel with the fingertips” ✧ VT47/10; VT47/24
Element in
This root was connected to Elvish words for “finger” for most of Tolkien’s life. It first appeared as an unglossed root ᴱ√LEPE in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s with derivatives like ᴱQ. let (lept-) “finger” and ᴱQ. lempe “crook, hook” (QL/53). There were also derivatives in the contemporaneous Gnomish Lexicon such as G. leptha “finger” and G. lempa- “beckon, crook the finger” (GL/53). The root ᴹ√LEP appeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s with extensions ᴹ√LEPET “finger” and ᴹ√LEPEN “five” and various derivatives of similar meanings (Ety/LEP).
In Tolkien’s later writings, √LEPEN “five” continued to appear regularly, along with the base root √LEP that was glossed either “finger” (VT42/24) or “pick up (with fingers)” (VT47/10, 24, 27). Despite the stability of the root, the Elvish words for “finger” themselves when through many revisions; see Q. leper and S. leber for discussion.