√TOLOD root. “eight”
The earliest Elvish words for “eight” were ᴱQ. {ungo >>} umna and G. {ung >>} uvin in the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s (GL/75), but in the Early Qenya Grammar of the 1920s it became ᴱQ. {telte >>} tolto (PE14/49). In The Etymologies of the 1930s Tolkien gave the root ᴹ√TOL¹-OTH/OT “eight” as the basis for ᴹQ. tolto and N. toloth of the same meaning (Ety/TOL¹-OTH/OT); in this document it was distinct from ᴹ√TOL² which was the basis for “island” words.
In documents on Elvish numbers from the late 1960s, Tolkien vacillated between √TOLOTH (VT42/30 note #52), √TOLOT (VT42/24; VT47/31) and √TOLOD (VT47/11) for the form of this root, but in the more polished versions of these documents he seems to have settled on √TOLOD > Q. toldo, S. toloð (VT48/6). In this last iteration, Tolkien connected the root √TOLOD to the root √TOL “stick up” due to the prominence of the middle fingers (3 and 8) in counting (VT47/11); see the entry on √TOL for discussion.
References ✧ VT42/24, 30; VT47/11, 16, 31-33
Glosses
Variations
Related
Elements
| TOL | “stick up or out, stand up (out and above neighboring things), raise the head” | ✧ VT47/11 |
| TOL | “stick up or out, stand up (out and above neighboring things), raise the head” | ✧ VT47/16 |
Derivatives
ᴹ√TOL¹-OTH/OT root. “eight”
Reference ✧ Ety/TOL¹-OTH/OT ✧ “eight”
Derivatives