Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/stūpaną

Related to *staupaz (“steep”) and *staupijaną (“to pour”), thus seeming to reflect a pre-Germanic root *stewb-. However, the rarity of *b in Proto-Indo-European and cognates such as Latin stupeō (“to be stunned”) make it more likely that the root was *stewp- (“to push, hit, knock”) with a semantic shift to “fall (over)”,^[1] and so Germanic *steup-, *stūp- could have been back-formed from earlier *stupp-, from pre-Germanic *stup-né(h₂)-; this process has been used to explain many other instances of root-final *p in Germanic. Compare also Proto-Germanic *stubbô, *stubbaz (“stump, stub”).

Kroonen derives the Germanic from a homophonous root *stewp- (“to stoop, bend”), implicitly considering it etymologically separate from the "push, hit" sense above, and adduces only Welsh ystum (“a bend, turn”), Breton stumm (“idem”) as cognates.^[2]

• IPA^(key): /ˈstuː.pɑ.nɑ̃/

*stūpaną^[1]

1. to stoop
2. to fall down, swoop down

• *stūpāną
• *stūpōną

• *staupijaną (“to make fall”)

• Proto-West Germanic: *stūpan
  • Old Dutch: *stūpan
    • Middle Dutch: stupen
      • Dutch: stuipen
  • Old English: stūpian
    • Middle English: stoupen, stoup, stoupe, stowpe, stowppe, stupen, stupin (Early Middle English), stoupi (Kent)
      • English: stoop (obsolete stoup)
      • Middle Scots: stoup
• Old Norse: stúpa
  • Icelandic: stúpa
  • Norwegian:

    Bokmål: stupe

    Nynorsk: stupa, stupe

  • Swedish: stupa