འབུ

Sherpa

Noun

འབུ (bu)

worm

References

Sherpa Dictionary by Nicolas Tournadre & al., Kathmandu 2009

Tibetan

Etymology

From Proto-Bodish *(')bu, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *N-pu(k) (“insect / snake / vermin / bug”). Compare Burmese ပိုး (pui:, “insect, worm, snake”), Lepcha ᰓᰪ (bu, “snake, worm”), Nuosu ꁯꄸ (bbup ddi), Naxi bbeeddiq (“insect”), Lolopo bber, Tangut 𘟥 (*bə², “insect, maggot”), Drung beu (“snake”), and possibly Chinese 蜉 (OC *bu).

Pronunciation

Old Tibetan: /*ᵐbu/
Lhasa: /pʰu˩˨/
Batang: /mbu⁵³/
Dêgê: /nbu³¹/
Zêkog: /mbə/
Bla-Brang: /nbə/
Arik: /mbə/
Lahuli–Spiti: /bu/

Old Tibetan:
- IPA^(key): /*ᵐbu/ (reconstructed)
Ü-Tsang
- Tibetan pinyin: pu^v
- (Lhasa) IPA^(key): /pʰu˩˨/
Khams
- (Batang) IPA^(key): /mbu⁵³/
- (Dêgê) IPA^(key): /nbu³¹/
Amdo
- (Zêkog) IPA^(key): /mbə/
- (Bla-Brang) IPA^(key): /nbə/
- (Arik) IPA^(key): /mbə/
Lahuli–Spiti
- (Spiti) IPA^(key): /bu/

Noun

འབུ • ('bu)

worm, bug, insect

Derived terms

དུག་འབུ (dug 'bu)
དབྱར་རྩྭ་དགུན་འབུ (dbyar rtswa dgun 'bu, “caterpillar fungus”)
འབུ་སྐམ ('bu skam, “dried caterpillar fungus”)
འབུ་པད་པ ('bu pad pa, “leech”)
འབུ་སྤུ་ཟོག ('bu spu zog, “caterpillar”)
འབུ་སྨན ('bu sman, “insecticide”)
འབུ་སྲིན ('bu srin, “insect”)
འབྲུ་འབུ ('bru 'bu)
སྲིན་བུ (srin bu, “insect”)
ཧམ་འབུ (ham 'bu, “mould”)

References

“འབུ” in The Tibetan Living Dictionary, Mandala Collections, 2021.
The Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus (STEDT). University of California at Berkeley. Directed by Matisoff, James A.