hekur

Albanian

Alternative forms

• hekër — Gheg
• ekur

Etymology

Uncertain. There are various possibilities.

1. a substrate pre-Indo-European word with no recorded or surviving cognates (words for technologies are retained, otherwise we would have expected Albanian to have borrowed the word for iron from one of the many neighbors, invaders or directly from PIE)
2. a substrate word cognate to Old Armenian երկաթ (erkatʻ), via a proto-form with metathesis *herku
3. related to hekë, from Proto-Indo-European *skek- (“to jump, be agile”), thus 'to tremble, shiver', literally 'that which trembles, jingles', with a semantic development similar to kërcej, meaning both 'to jump, dance' and 'to make a cracking sound'.
4. an irregular cognate of Ancient Greek ἄγκυρα (ánkura, “anchor”).
5. from *soikros (Gustav Meyer), akin to Sanskrit सिञ्चति (siñcáti, “to pour out, discharge, emit, shed”)

Noun

hekur m (plural hekura, definite hekuri, definite plural hekurat)

1. iron (the metal)
2. clothes iron

Declension

Declension of hekur

	singular		plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	hekur	hekuri	hekura	hekurat
accusative		hekurin
dative	hekuri	hekurit	hekurave	hekurave
ablative			hekurash

Related terms

• hekë

References

• Schrader, Otto (1890) Frank Byron Jevons, transl., Prehistoric antiquities of the Aryan peoples: a manual of comparative philology and the earliest culture, London: Charles Griffin and Company, page 210