Q. aurë n. “day (as opposed to night), daylight, sunlight, morning” (Category: Day)
The usual Quenya word for “day” (RC/727; S/190). It more specifically means “day” as opposed to “night” (PE17/148). The word “day” for an entire 24-hour period is ré instead (LotR/1107; PE22/158). Aure is derived from the root √UR “heat, be hot” based on primitive ✶auri “heat, period of sun” (PE17/120, 148). The word aure was sometimes translated “sunlight, daylight” (PE17/120) or “morning” (MC/222), but the former may have been its ancient meaning and the latter a loose translation.
Conceptual Development: In the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s ᴱQ. aure was glossed “sunlight, sunshine, gold light, warmth” under the early root had ᴱ√AWA “burn; be parched, yellow, warm” (QL/33). That document also had ᴱQ. kala “daytime (sunlight), 12 hours” under ᴱ√KALA “shine golden” (QL/44). ᴱQ. kale “day” appeared in the Early Qenya Grammar (EQG) of the 1920s as an example of an e-noun, but was replaced by ᴱQ. tantare “dance” (PE14/43).
Drafts of the ᴱQ. Oilima Markirya from around 1930 had ᴱQ. lá “day” (PE16/75). The Etymologies of the 1930s at first had ᴹQ. ala “day” based on the root ᴹ√GAL¹ “shine” which was a variant of ᴹ√KAL (EtyAC/GAL¹). But {ala} was deleted and probably replaced by ᴹQ. are “day” based on primitive ᴹ✶ari under the root ᴹ√AR¹ also meaning “day” (Ety/AR¹).
Tolkien had ᴹQ. ara “day” in a few notes from the 1940s (PE22/47; PE23/109) but the usual form remained are or áre “day” up through the 1950s (PM/127; VT43/18). When finalizing The Lord of the Rings appendices, Tolkien decided that árë meant “sunlight” (LotR/1123), and around this time he decided that aurë was “day” as described above.
Neo-Quenya: For purposes of Neo-Quenya, I would mostly use aurë for “day[time]”, but would also use it for “daylight” as a time period: “go when it is daylight [aurë]”. I would not use aurë for “sunlight”, and would instead use árë.
References ✧ MC/222-223; Minor-Doc/1955-CT; PE17/120, 148; RC/727; S/190, 195; SA/ur; VT49/45; WJ/166
Glosses
Variations
Related
Inflections
| aurenya | 1st-sg-poss | ✧ Minor-Doc/1955-CT | |
| aurenna | allative | “*upon the day” | ✧ VT49/45 |
| auressë | locative | “in the ... morning” | ✧ MC/222 |
Element In
Cognates
Derivations
Phonetic Developments
| √ur- > aure | [auri] > [aure] | ✧ PE17/120 |
| ✶aurĭ- > aure | [auri] > [aure] | ✧ PE17/148 |
| √ur- > aurë | [auri] > [aure] | ✧ SA/ur |