ᴹ√ORON root. “high tree”
A root mentioned in several places in The Etymologies of the 1930s: as {ᴹ√ORÓN >>} ᴹ√ÓRON under the entry for ᴹ√NEL (EtyAC/NEL) and as {ᴹ√ÓR-ON >>} ᴹ√ÓR-NI “high tree” under the entry for ᴹ√ORO “up, rise”, an extension of that root (Ety/ORO; EtyAC/ORO). In the latter entry ᴹ√ÓR-NI was the basis for ᴹQ. orne/N. orn “(high isolated) tree”. The root itself does not appear in Tolkien’s earliest writings, but G. orn “tree” dates all the way back to the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s, though there its Qenya cognate was ᴱQ. orond- “bush” (GL/62). The primitive form ᴱ✶orne- appeared in the Noldorin Dictionary from the 1920s with derivatives ᴱQ. orne/ᴱN. orn “tree” (PE13/164), and primitive ✶ornē continued to appear in Tolkien’s writings in the 1940s, 50s and 60s (SD/302; PE17/113; UT/266), its last mentioned being in a 1972 letter to Richard Jeffery, where it was again given as an extension of √OR/RO (Let/426). It was thus a very enduring idea.
References ✧ Ety/NEL; EtyAC/NEL, ORO
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