Middle Primitive Elvish
thur
root. surround, fence, ward, hedge in, secrete
Derivatives
Element in
Beware, older languages below! The languages below were invented during Tolkien's earlier period and should be used with caution. Remember to never, ever mix words from different languages!
A root in The Etymologies of the 1930s glossed “surround, fence, ward, hedge in, secrete”, with derivatives like N. thora- “fence” and Ilk. thúren “guarded, hidden”, the latter serving as an element in the names Ilk. Thuringwethil “(Woman of) Secret Shadow” and Ilk. Garthurian “Hidden Realm” (Ety/THUR). Both these names survived in later versions of The Silmarillion (S/178; WJ/189), and later names like S. Thurin “Secret” and S. Thuringud “Hidden Foe” (UT/157; WJ/256) imply the ongoing validity of this root, though the survival of u in S. thurin is rather mysterious; David Salo suggested the ancient form might originally have been thūrin(e) (GS/291).
The earliest precursor to Garthurian was G. Gar Furion “Secret Place” from the 1910s (PE13/102; PE15/24), which was based on the unglossed root ᴱ√FURU or ᴱ√HURU from the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s with derivatives like ᴱQ. furin/G. furion “secret, hidden, concealed” and Q. furu/G. fûr “a lie” (QL/39; GL/36). In the Lost Tales of this period, Tolkien changed {G. Gar Furion >>} G. Gar Thurion (LT2/202), so it seems the shift from ᴱ√FURU >> ✱√ÞURU was very early.