- Q. hrissë n. “fall of snow”
- A word for “fall of snow” appearing beside deleted {hritse “fall”} in notes from around 1959, derived from the root √SRIS “snow” (PE17/168). Note that this word is for a “snow fall”, basically a noun form of the verb †hríza “it is snowing” (ᴺQ. hrísa). The word for the “snow” itself, especially after it is already fallen, is lossë.
- Q. hriz- vb. “hriz-”
- In notes written around 1959, Tolkien experimented with various roots for impersonal “snow” verbs, first giving the aorist form of a derived verb Q. hrisya “it snows” < hriþya from the root √SRITH, then the present tense form of a basic verb Q. hríza “it is snowing” from the root √SRIS (PE17/168).
Neo-Quenya: The basic verb form †hriz- is likely archaic, since z usually became r in Quenya’s phonetic development. In this case, though, I suspect the medial z dissimilated back to s after the hr, since Quenya disliked repeated r’s (PE19/73-74). This occurred, for example, with the verb ras- “stick out” < †raz- < √RAS.
Thus, I would use modern Quenya hrise “[it] snows”, hrinse “[it] snowed”, ihrísie “[it] has snowed”. Since this is an impersonal verbs, no explicit subject is required.
- Q. lossë n. and adj. “snow, fallen snow; snow-white, snowy”
- The general Quenya word for “snow” derived from the root √(G)LOS (PE17/26; VT42/18), more specifically “fallen snow” (RGEO/61), as opposed to a “snow fall” or “*falling snow” which is hrissë (PE17/168). At various points Tolkien said this word could also be used as an adjective “snowy, snow-white” (RGEO/61; PE17/161), but I would do so only in poetry or in compounds. For more ordinary speech, I would use the adjective form lossëa for clarity (PE17/71, 161; VT42/18). Strictly speaking, the noun and adjective forms of lossë have distinct primitive origins: ✶lossē “snow” vs. ✶lossĭ “snowy, snow-white” (PE17/161), so the stem form of the adjective would be lossi-.
Conceptual Development: In The Etymologies of the 1930s there was a word ᴹQ. olosse “snow, fallen snow” derived from the root ᴹ√GOLOS; Tolkien modified the entry to mark this form as poetic (†) and gave it a variant olos (Ety/GOLÓS).
- Q. lossëa adj. “snowy, (snow) white”
- A word for “snowy” or “snow-white”, an adjective form of lossë “snow” (PE17/161; VT42/18). In one place it was simply glossed “white” (PE17/71), though in most places the generic Quenya word for “white” is ninquë.
Conceptual Development: In some poems from written around 1930, Tolkien used similar words for “white” in a couple places, for example in the phrase ᴱQ. ondoli losse karkane “the white rocks snarling” from the Oilima Markirya poem (MC/213); here the word for “white” might be the plural of an adjective ᴱQ. lossa as suggested by Gilson, Welden and Hostetter (PE16/84). An element losse “white” also appears in the phrase ᴱQ. losselie telerinwa “the white people of the shores of Elfland” from the Nieninqe poem (MC/216). However, for this most part in the earliest period, losse was use for “flower” words; see that entry for discussion.
- Q. nieninquë n. “snowdrop, [ᴹQ.] (lit.) white tear”
- A word for “snowdrop”, perhaps a reference to that species of flower, appearing in The Etymologies of the 1930s as a combination of ᴹQ. nie “tear” and ᴹQ. ninqe “white”, so literally “white tear” (Ety/NEI, NIK-W). ᴱQ. nieninqe also appeared with the same form, meaning and etymology in the Qenya Lexicon and the Poetic and Mythological Words of Eldarissa of the 1910s (QL/68; PME/68). In later writings, it appeared in adjectival form nieninquëa “like a snowdrop” in the 1950s version of the Nieninquë poem (PE16/96); the same form appeared in the version of the poem written around 1930, and its drafts (MC/215; PE16/90, 92). The word nieninquë likewise served as the title of that poem.
- ᴱQ. tiqilin n. “thaw, melting snow, slush”
- This word appeared as ᴱQ. tiqilin “a thaw, melting snow, slush” with stem form tiqilind- as an elaboration of ᴱQ. tiqile “melting, thawing, thaw” (QL/92).
Neo-Quenya: I think this word can be salvaged as ᴺQ. tiquilin, but I would revise its etymology to be a combination of ᴺQ. tiqu- “melt” and √LIN¹ “pool”.
- S. loss n. “snow”
- The usual Sindarin word for “snow” (Let/278; PE17/161; RGEO/62), especially fallen and long-lying snow (VT42/18), derived from primitive ✶lossē (PE17/161) based on the root √(G)LOS (PE17/26; RGEO/62). It sometimes appeared in a shorter form los (PE17/26, 161). See the entry on [s] for a discussion of these long vs. short variations; for purposes of Neo-Sindarin loss is probably preferable.
Conceptual Development: Perhaps the earliest iteration of this word was G. glui “snow” from the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s, likely related to nearby words like G. gloss “white” (GL/40). In The Etymologies of the 1930s, N. gloss from the root ᴹ√GOLOS was both noun “snow” and adjective “snow-white” (Ety/GOLÓS), but in later writing Tolkien split these into S loss “snow” (see above) and S. gloss “(dazzling) white” (RGEO/62; VT42/18).
- S. lossen adj. “snowy”
- A word for “snowy” mentioned in passing in The Road Goes Ever On, adjectival form of S. loss “snow” (RGEO/62).
- G. nib n. “snowflake”
- A word appearing as G. nib “snowflake” in the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s (GL/60), clearly based on the early root ᴱ√NIQI “white” (QL/66), since medial and final q became p and then b.
Neo-Sindarin: I think this word can be salvaged as Neo-Sindarin ᴺS. nibis “snowflake”, cognate of Q. niquis.
- G. nictha- vb. “to rain, hail, snow”
- An impersonal verb in the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s appearing as G. nictha “it is raining, hailing, is snowing” (GL/60), clearly based on the early root ᴱ√NIQI “white” (QL/66) with qt [kʷt] > cth [xθ].
Neo-Sindarin: If updated to Neo-Sindarin, this verb would be ᴺS. nítha- since since k spirantalized and then vocalized before th. However, I would limit its use to “snow, hail”, and for the verb “rain” I’d instead use ᴺS. ail-.
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