Q. únótima adj. “numberless, innumerable, countless, hard/difficult/impossible to count” (Category: Amount, Quantity)
A word for “numberless, countless” appearing in its plural form únótime from the Namárië poem in the phrase: yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron “long years numberless as the wings of trees” (LotR/377; RGEO/58). Tolkien described the etymology of this word in various places as a negation of nótima “countable” using the negative prefix ú-, so more literally meaning “*uncountable”.
Conceptual Development: In the brief period around 1969 where Tolkien made lá the primary negative in Quenya, he redefined únótima as “hard/difficult to count” (PE22/156, 160); it also had this gloss in notes from 1967 (PE17/62). In a (rejected) page within Definitive Linguistic Notes (DLN) from 1959, Tolkien instead had urunóte or urnótima based on the prefix ur(u)- (PE17/172), elsewhere glossed “hard, difficult” (PE17/154). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, Tolkien gave ᴹQ. avanóte “without number, numberless” under the root ᴹ√AWA “away, forth; out” (Ety/AWA).
References ✧ LotR/377, 1115; PE17/62-63, 76, 144; PE22/156, 160; RGEO/58; VT39/14; VT42/33
Glosses
Variations
Changes
Inflections
| unótime | plural | ✧ PE17/76 | |
| únótime | plural | “innumerable” | ✧ LotR/1115 |
| únótime | plural | ✧ PE17/62 | |
| únótimë | plural | “numberless” | ✧ LotR/377 |
| únótimë | plural | “innumerable” | ✧ PE17/63 |
| únótimë | plural | ✧ PE17/63 | |
| ū-nōt-ime | plural | “not-count-able” | ✧ RGEO/58 |
| ū̀nṓtimè | plural | “numberless” | ✧ RGEO/58 |
Elements
| ú- | “no, not, un-, in-; hard, difficult, bad, uneasy; hardly, with difficulty, ‘badly’” | ✧ PE17/62 (ū-); PE17/63; PE17/143; PE22/156 (ū); PE22/160; VT39/14; VT42/33 | |
| nótima | “countable, limited in number (weight and measure); (colloquial) moderate in amount, some few, several” | ✧ PE17/62 (nōtima) | |
| not- | “to count” | ✧ PE17/63 | |
Element In
ᴹQ. avanóte adj. “without number, numberless” (Category: Amount, Quantity)
References ✧ Ety/AR², AWA
Glosses
Elements
| ava- | “without” | ✧ Ety/AR²; Ety/AWA | |
| nóte | “number” | ||
| ᴹ√NOT | “count, reckon” | ✧ Ety/AR²; Ety/AWA | |
Cognates
Q. urnótima adj. “*difficult to count” (Category: Difficult)
References ✧ PE17/172
Variations
Elements
| ur(u)- | “hard, difficult” | ✧ PE17/172 (ur-); PE17/172 (ur-) |
| nótima | “countable, limited in number (weight and measure); (colloquial) moderate in amount, some few, several” | ✧ PE17/172 (nótima) |
Cognates