S. daer¹ adj. “great, large” (Category: Big, Large, Great)
A word for “great” appearing in various names like Lond Daer (UT/263), Athrad Dhaer “Great Ford” (WJ/338), or Duin Dhaer “Great Ford” (WJ/191). In many of these names, Tolkien vacillated between Daer and Dhaer as the mutated form, indicating vacillation between Taer and Daer as the unmutated form. The clearest representation of this word appears in notes on The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor from the late 1960s, where Tolkien said the name Daeron was based on S. daer “large, great”, whose primitive form was ✶daira based on the root √DAY (VT42/11).
Conceptual Development: A likely precursor is N. daur “great, large” from The Etymologies of the 1930s derived from primitive ᴹ✶daʒrā under the root ᴹ√DAƷ “great”, though this entry was rejected (EtyAC/DAƷ).
References ✧ UT/264; VT42/11, 14; WJ/191, 335, 338
Glosses
Variations
Inflections
| Dhaer | soft-mutation; d-mutation | “great” | ✧ VT42/14 |
| Dhaer | soft-mutation; d-mutation | ✧ WJ/191 | |
| Dhaer | soft-mutation; d-mutation | “great” | ✧ WJ/338 |
Element In
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| ✶daira > daer | [daira] > [dair] > [daer] | ✧ VT42/11 |