οὐρανόςouranos
Sign in to saveAncient Greek
Root
mvura
water, rain, rainfall
Ouranos descends from Shona mvura, the rain, the raining one above
- Confidence
- 62/100
- Root language
- Shona
- Descent begins
- οὐρανόςAncient Greek
The consensus position
Mainstream comparative linguistics treats the etymology of οὐρανός as unresolved. The old equation with Sanskrit Varuṇa is now generally rejected on phonological grounds, a derivation from *h₁wers- "to rain" or from *wer- "to cover" is entertained but not established, and Beekes argues for a pre-Greek substrate origin on the strength of the non-Indo-European suffix -ανος.
The working behind this.
The full descent — 8 links from the attested form down to the root — the segment-by-segment correspondences, the phonological breakdown and the case for the derivation are behind an account.
An account opens 10 entries in full, free.
Elsewhere in the corpus
- מַיִםmvurawater, rain
- Pelagiaparato spread out, to lay out flat, to clear a surface level
- Kérberoskerekato be smeared, streaked, marked with dirt; causative kerekedza, to streak or daub
- ἀποκτείνω-tekanato be cut off, be broken off, be severed, to snap
- μάχαιραmhakamatter, case, dispute, cause of quarrel; fault, blame, the grounds on which one is answerable
- βλασφημία-bvato come out, to issue forth; in the derived bvuma, to give voice, to assent