kūnas

See also: kunas and Kunas

Lithuanian

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kūnai

Wikipedia ^lt

Cognate with Latvian kūnis (“pupa (of an insect); body”), with further origin uncertain:^[1]

Charpentier and Fraenkel derive the word from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewH- (“to cover”), with Fraenkel comparing the long vowel in Lithuanian to that of Ancient Greek σκῦτος (skûtos, “skin, hide”) in particular.^[2]

Another theory takes the word as a derivative from the verb káuti (“to beat, strike”), where the noun's original sense was "(well-hewn) body", in which case from Proto-Balto-Slavic *káuˀtei, from Proto-Indo-European *kowh₂, from *kewh₂- (“to strike”).^[3]

Bruckner compares the word to Proto-Slavic *kъnъ (“trunk”) (whence Polish do cna (“totally, completely”)); however, the long ū in the Lithuanian term makes this phonetically doubtful.^[2]

kū́nas m (plural kū́nai) stress pattern 1

Declension of kū́nas

^ Smoczyński, Wojciech (2007) “kū́nas”, in Słownik etymologiczny je̜zyka litewskiego‎^[1] (in Polish), Vilnius: Uniwersytet Wileński, page 324
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 Fraenkel, Ernst (1955, 1962–1965) “kū́nas”, in Litauisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume I, Heidelberg-Göttingen: Carl Winter and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, page 310
^ Lituanus. (1988). United States: Lithuanian Student Association, Secretariate for External Relations, p. 311