Q. erma n. “(physical) matter” (Category: Thing)
A word for “matter” in notes from around 1959 (MR/338, 349). In context Tolkien said the Elves “held that all things or ‘makings’, that is constructed (however simply and incipiently) from basic ‘matter’, which they called erma, were impermanent, within Ea.” In the book The Nature of Middle Earth, Carl Hostetter argued that this Elvish notion of matter was similar to Aristotelian undifferentiated “prime matter”, the raw substance from which all things that exist were formed (NM/171-172, 407). This word seems to be a combination of √ER “one, single, alone” + ✶-mā “thing”, which also fits the notion of an Elvish concept that matter is the prime substance from which all things are constructed.
Conceptual Development: In Quenya Notes (QN) from 1957, Tolkien gave Q. hrón “flesh/substance of Arda, matter” which was derived from srōn < √SRON, a root variation of √RON “solid, tangible, firm”. In the 1959 notes mentioned above, the word hrón “matter” was revised orma (MR/218, 231 note #26) and finally to erma (MR/338, 359 note #14), as described above.
In the essay Laws and Customs of the Eldar from 1958, the forms hrón and rhón were instead given the sense “body”, but that sense was reassigned to hrondo, later revised to hröa “body” (MR/229 note #16, 231 note #25).
References ✧ MR/218, 338, 349, 359, 470-471; NM/14, 250
Glosses
Variations
Related
Element In
Derivations
Q. hrón n. “matter, substance, flesh; body” (Category: Thing)
References ✧ MR/209, 218, 229, 231, 233, 470-471; PE17/183
Glosses
Variations
Changes
Inflections
| hróni | plural | ✧ MR/233 |
| hróni | plural | ✧ MR/471 |
| hrŏm- | stem | ✧ MR/231 |
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| √s-ron > hrōn | [srōn] > [r̥ōn] | ✧ MR/231 |
| √SRON > hrōn | [srōn] > [r̥ōn] | ✧ PE17/183 |