ondo

noun. stone (as a material), (large mass of) rock

The basic word for “stone” in Quenya. More specifically, it was “stone as a material, a large mass of stone or great rock” (RC/347; PE17/28; Ety/GOND) as opposed to a small individual stone, which was Q. sar (Ety/SAR). Ondo was derived from the root ᴹ√GONOD of essentially the same meaning, as was its Sindarin cognate S. gond (Ety/GOND).

Conceptual Development: The earliest iteration of this word was ᴱQ. on(d) “a stone” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s under the root ᴱ√ONO “hard” (QL/70); it was ond(o) in the contemporaneous Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa (PME/50). Its Gnomish cognate was G. gonn “great stone, rock” (GL/41) meaning the early root form was probably ✱ᴱ√ƷONO, with the initial *ʒ* vanishing in Qenya but becoming *g* in Gnomish. Later on, this derivation no longer worked, since Tolkien decided that initial ʒ became h in Qenya, as reflected in the form ᴱQ. {ŋonda >>} hond- “stone, rock” in the Early Noldorin Dictionary of the 1920s (PE13/162).

However, the usual form became ondo as of the Early Qenya Grammar and various word lists in the 1920s (PE14/43-44; PE15/77; PE16/138), and ᴹQ. ondo “stone (as a material)” appeared in The Etymologies of the 1930s, already with the derivation given above (Ety/GOND). Tolkien stuck with this form thereafter.