Etymograph

English

lene

Lene comes from Latin lēnis ‘soft, smooth, gentle, moderate, mild, calm’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *leh₁- ‘lazy, slow’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*leh₁-‘lazy, slow’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*lēnis‘soft, mild’reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElēnis‘soft, smooth, gentle, moderate, mild, calm’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1861lene

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*leh₁-‘lazy, slow’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*lēnis‘soft, mild’reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CElēnis‘soft, smooth, gentle, moderate, mild, calm’
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1861lene

Earliest quotation: 1861, William Edward Jelf: “When in a crasis, a lene consonant […] is…”

Linked words

through Latin lēnis ‘soft, smooth, gentle, moderate, mild, calm’

lenient, leniency, 6 more

Today it means

noun The smooth breathing (spiritus lenis).

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *leh₁- / lene

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