A noun for “water”, also regularly applied to bodies of water like lakes, pools and rivers, especially in names like S. Bruinen “Loudwater” (a river) and S. Nen Echui “Water of Awakening” (an inland sea).
Conceptual Development: This word dates all the way back to the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s where {nen >>} G. nenn “water; river” appeared (GL/60), a derivative of the early root ᴱ√NENE “flow” as suggested by Christopher Tolkien (LT1A/Neni Erúmëar; QL/65). ᴱN. nen and nenn appeared in various Early Noldorin documents from the 1920s with glosses like “stream” (PE13/123), “water” (PE13/151), and “water, river” (PE13/164), but in this period Tolkien indicated the primitive form was ninda (PE13/123, 164). This seems to have been a transient idea, since in The Etymologies of the 1930s Tolkien gave N. nen “water” as a derivative of ᴹ√NEN (Ety/NEN), and this derivation appeared in Tolkien’s later writings as well (PE17/52).
{ĕ}_ n. _water, lake. Q. nén. >> nîn