Table Of ContentA Comprehensive Georgian-English Dictionary
didi
KarTul-inglisuri leKsikoni
tomi I
a — l
Semdgenlebi:
SuKia aPridonije • lorens brursi • Tina margalitaje •
donald reiPildi (pasuHmgebeli redaKtori) •
levan XHaije • ariane xanturia
TanamSromlebi:
rusudan amireJibi • ruven enukije • kevin tiuiti •
zurab KiKnaje • david JaSi • JorJ hiuiti
gamomCemloba «garneti»
londoni — 2006
A Comprehensive
Georgian-English Dictionary
Volume I
a — l
editors:
Shukia Apridonidze • Laurence Broers • Ariane Chanturia •
Levan Chkhaidze • Tina Margalitadze • Donald Rayfield (editor-in-chief)
contributors:
Rusudan Amirejibi • Ruben Enoch • George Hewitt •
Davit Jashi • Zurab Kiknadze • Kevin Tuite
GARNETT PRESS
LONDON 2006
first published in Great Britain in 2006 by
The Garnett Press,
Dpt of Russian (SML)
Queen Mary (University of London),
Mile End Road,
London E1 4NS
copyright @ Shukia Apridonidze, Laurence Broers, Ariane Chanturia,
Levan Chkhaidze, Tina Margalitadze, Donald Rayfield, 2006
typeset in Times, Kartveli and Amirani (@Paul Meurer, University of Bergen) by Donald Rayfield
1000 copies printed and bound in Turkey by Mega Basım, Yeni Bosna, on Enzo 55gm
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners and
the publisher of this book
ISBN - 10 0-9535878-3-5 (two-volume set)
0-9535878-4-3 (volume I)
0-9535878-5-1 (volume II)
ISBN - 13 978-0-9535878-3-4 (two-volume set)
978-0-9535878-4-1 (volume I)
978-0-9535878-5-8 (volume II)
Fox Hollow Cottage,
Tinker Pot Lane,
Otford, Kent
UK TN15 6AA
[email protected]
0044-1959-526894
30 November 2005
Dear Reader,
I enclose:
a) Introduction to the Georgian-English dictionary
b) Semosavali (a free translation of the above)
c) list of abbreviations
d) the first of eight parts, words beginning in a- and b-
Please look closely for the following:
1 omitted, duplicated or invented words and forms
2 wrongly or inadequately translated words and examples
3 inadequately chosen examples
4 wrong or inadequate grammatical/semantic information
5 breaches of alphabetical order
6 misprints in both English and Georgian, faults in fonts, spacing, layout
7 inconsistencies in presentation, in use of abbreviations, in cross-references (these will be
fully clear only when you have had all 8 parts).
Please scrutinize this first part with special attention, since faults noticed here can be put right
in the next 7 parts before you receive them.
If possible, return your fascicle by express post or courier with corrections, or, better still, e-
mail me with a list of corrections, preferably as a PDF file attached to an e-mail, since that will avoid
confusion between computers and programmes) THREE WEEKS AFTER RECEIPT
Timetable for receipt of next fascicles:
part 2: mid-December; part 3: early January 2006; part 4 end January
part 5:late February; part 6 mid March; part 7 early April; part 8 late April
I then have just three months to incorporate all your corrections and to format the whole work
for printing from disc (in Istanbul end July).
If I do not yet have your bank details for payment, please give them (including SWIFT or
IBAN code), and state what currency (within reason) you wish to be paid in. Your fee is £2000 and
eternal glory or infamy, i.e. a prominent mention on the obverse of the title page.
Thank you
Donald Rayfield
1 Introduction draft of December 16, 2005
Again and again psychological principles (where will the student
look for the word, how does one guard him against confusions in
the best possible manner) clash with grammatical ones (base word,
derivative) and with the typographical utilization of space, with the
well-organized appearance of the printed page etc. Thus it happens
that the superficial critic will meet with seemingly arbitrary
inconsequences everywhere, but those inconsequences are caused
by compromises between essential viewpoints.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wörterbuch für Volksschulen 1926
And if, enraged he cried, Heaven meant to shed
Its keenest vengeance on the guilty head,
The drudgery of words the damn’d would know,
Doom’d to write Lexicons in endless woe.
Samuel Johnson
WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THIS DICTIONARY?
This dictionary aims, as far as possible, to give an English equivalent for the entire lexical corpus of the Georgian
language, ancient, classical and modern, as well as literary, colloquial and dialectal. We have therefore included
virtually all the entries from the eight-volume Explanatory Dictionary of the Georgian Language (henceforth
KEGL) published between 1950 and 1964; these entries have been cross-checked with, and in some instances
expanded from, Kita Tschenkéli’s and Yolanda Marchev’s Georgisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch of 1965-1974.
The second major source is a data base (listing about two million word forms and their frequency) of the
Georgian daily and weekly press from 1999-2002 compiled by Irak’li Iak’obashvili and made searchable on the
internet by Dr Levan Chkhaidze and Dato Jashi. Thirdly, we have used a searchable electronic version, and a list
of all word forms, of twenty substantial texts by contemporary writers, predominantly novelists. The fourth major
source are Ilia Abuladze and Zurab Sarjveladze’s compilations and dictionaries of Old Georgian. We have used
only selectively about thirty dictionaries of the various dialects of modern Georgian and dictionaries form various
branches of science and technology. A number of other sources have also contributed to our corpus, the 19 and
20th century Georgian-Russian dictionaries (notably by Nik’o and Davit Chubinashvili and Ketevan
Datik’ashvili) We have exploited the nine volumes of Ivan Javakhishvili’s Materials of Georgia’s Cottage
Industries and Crafts, as well as notes to major editions of literary texts and of folklore. Finally, we have
incorporated a substantial body of modern vulgar, colloquial and specialist expressions from field work carried
out by Dr Laurence Broers between 2001 and 2004.
We incorporate into the main body of the dictionary elements usually put on separate sections. Thus proper
nouns (names of places and persons) and abbreviations intermingle with common nouns and unabbreviated
forms. The rationale for this is that modern Georgian lacks capital letters and does not usually mark abbreviations
with full stops, so that such forms often resemble, and can even be identical with, ordinary words.
We also include, as does the Explanatory Dictionary, for the sake of users who do not have a perfect command
of Georgian, individual bound morphemes, with a short explanation of their semantic functions and grammatical
properties. Morphemes are included where they are productive, i.e. where by combining them new words can still
be formed. Non-productive suffixes such as -Jeradi are not listed separately on the grounds that every word
that has this suffix already has an entry and new words are unlikely to be created with this suffix. On the other
hand suffixes such as -Tan are productive, almost infinitely so, and therefore have an entry
2 Introduction draft of December 16, 2005
We have tried to err on the side of inclusiveness; thus a number of words invented by poets, or mistaken, even
invented, by earlier lexicographers, and never used again, have filtered through: better to include an unknown than
exclude a known. The meaning of some rare words used between 1200 and 1800 in ambiguous contexts is still a
matter of guesswork, even when they occur in translation from Greek etc, and the marker † (‘obsolete’) can also
be taken as a warning that the translation may possibly be inaccurate. We do not assume a knowledge of Russian
among users: Russian words frequently used in Georgian (e.g. parts of a car) will thus be listed.
Exclusions
We exclude a very few words, such as hyphenated forms where the total meaning of the hyphenated form is
identical with the sum of the meaning of each separate component. In a number of cases where a verbal noun
ending -eba and the corresponding verb ending in -ebs have a very rarely attested alternative form in -oba/obs, or
vice versa, we sometimes omit the non-standard form. Similarly where a past participle passive in -uli has a very
rarely attested alternative form in -ili (or vice versa), this too may not be listed. (If the alternative forms are
frequently attested, then of course they are listed. We exclude a number of Russian words often used in
colloquial Georgian which are nevertheless consciously (and ironically) used as alien expressions. We exclude a
very few Soviet, especially political, terms which can be instantly recognized when transliterated into English and
which never had a real substance for those who uttered or heard them. Some Germanisms such as Landsturm,
and some Soviet compounds that do not reflect any reality but are self-explanatory (e.g. electric rainmaker) are
also excluded.
International words are given in all variants when the meaning in English differs, or their international origin is
not immediately obvious. If they are equivalent in meaning for Georgian and English, then one example, e.g.
absenteeism, is given, while related words that would follow it, e.g. absenteeist, will be omitted.
We omit certain non-standard forms that can be boldly called ‘incorrect’, for instance forms where Greek ch is
transliterated as H not K, forms where Greek h is, under Russian influence, transliterated as g-, or Russian -g- is
transliterated -G - instead of -g-
Many Russian words can be considered to be assimilated (with Georgian prefixes and suffixes, and like the
influx of Anglicisms over the last fifteen years, we have had to make rough decisions, based on the frequency of
their use, on whether they have been assimilated in the Georgian language (just as seven hundred years ago a
Georgian lexicographer would have had to discriminate between Persian words used in Georgian discourse).
Many new words transliterated from foreign languages have several renderings, e.g. ‘killer’ can be kileri or
Kileri, and this leads to multiple entries. Mistaken transliterations from western languages (e.g. pakti instead
of paKti, ‘pact’) are not usually listed. In transliteration from Russian words may or may not have the soft
consonant transliterated (e.g. pliaZi/plaZi ‘beach’), and usually Russian vowels are sometimes phonetically
represented (pabeda for ‘pobeda’, ‘victory’, or the Pobeda make of car). Bill Clinton appears as klintoni,
KlinToni, Klintoni, klinToni. All we can do is list the most common forms; otherwise the user may have to
substitute aspirate for non-aspirate plosive to find the listed form.
The English renderings are British, not American. We have tried to choose as neutral a register as is consistent
with translating from another language and culture. One exception is the occasional use of antiquated English,
e.g. using hither to indicate the orientation of Georgian verbs with a prefix/infix (-)mo and thither for
corresponding verbs beginning with mi- that indicate motion away from the speaker.
We have aimed to give as explicit an interpretation of the meaning of a Georgian word and the phrases and
idioms in which it is commonly met. But we have not had the space to give a full list of English synonyms, nor to
expand on the meaning and usage of the English equivalents. The dictionary is aimed primarily at an English-
speaker interpreting Georgian text or discourse. It is intended only secondarily to be useful to a Georgian seeking
to compose an English sentence. We hope that the Georgian reader will nevertheless find this dictionary useful, in
conjunction with such monolingual dictionaries as the Oxford English Dictionary or Hornby’s Dictionary of
English for Advanced Learners. Georgians will also find a number of Georgian words more accurately defined
than in previous dictionaries, or even defined for the first time.
HOW ARE GEORGIAN WORDS ENTERED?
3 Introduction draft of December 16, 2005
Multiple forms
Many Georgian verbs, particularly onomatopœic words imitating real sound, foreign words in transliteration,
words of dialect origin, words found chiefly in older texts, have different spellings in which a voiced consonant
may be substituted for an unvoiced, an aspirated for a non-aspirated. This has resulted in multiple entries, some
only brief, but all cross-referenced to the form that can be considered standard.
In other cases, particularly adjectives and participles, multiple forms arise because of the presence of optional
stems between root and ending. We put these optional elements in round brackets; the marker lst indicates that
the long form, including the bracketed material is standard; the marker sst indicates that the short form, omitting
the bracketed letters, is standard. If there is no indication, then either form is acceptable.
Homonyms
Homonyms are NOT listed separately. Different words with the same spelling will be found under one heading:
the future participle gasHvevi ‘to be wrapped’, and the noun gasaHevi ‘a turn off’ will be found numbered
separately, with an indication in italics of the part of speech, but under the same entry
Nouns, adjectives, pronouns
Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are given in their nominative singular form. (In a few cases the singular is never
used, so the plural is listed, and a very few nouns occur only in the genitive case.) If a noun is regular in its
declension (i.e. nominative ends in -i, -a, -e and the genitive ends in -is, the dative in -s, or the nominative ends in
-o/-u and the genitive in -os/-us), no further information is given. Otherwise the genitive ending is indicated in
brackets. Nouns (especially proper nouns such as giorgi) that keep their final -i in the dative and ergative cases
have their ergative ending given in brackets. Case forms are indicated in the ‘short’ form. (Long case endings
have a final -a which occur in certain positions, i.e. when genitive comes after nominative or when the word is
followed by a monosyllable, and these will be found in this dictionary only in quotations and examples.)
Proper nouns (names of persons and places) are given and marked N, especially when they are not instantly
recognizable as such. Thus Tbilisi ‘Tbilisi’ will not be included, but missouri ‘Missouri’ will.
Pronouns, especially deictic, are highly irregular; the standard (and some non-standard) case forms are given in
brackets after the nominative entry form
Where a stem vowel is elided before cases other than the nominative, dative and ergative, then this vowel is placed
within square brackets, thus Tvali has genitive Tvalis, but Tv[a]li Tvlis.
Adverbs in -ad are not listed if their meaning cannot be automatically inferred from the adjective ending in -i
from which they are derived. Where the adverb has wider or idiomatically different semantics than the adjective, it
is listed separately. Likewise gerundives in -ad which are derived from the future participle ending in -i are listed
separately only if their meaning (in order to do something) or usage differs from what the future participle
means (something to be done). When the adjective exists only theoretically e.g. gamoumSvidobebeli ‘who does
not take leave’, and the adverbial form is normal e.g. gamoumSvidobeblad ‘without saying good-bye’, the
adverbial form is made the entry form.
Verbs are listed more exhaustively than in any previous bilingual Georgian dictionary. As in KEGL we give not
only the verbal noun (‘masdar’) but an entry for the third person singular form (or plural when the singular does
not exist) of the present tense or future tense, both active (transitive) form and passive (intransitive) form, with
markers for the indirect object in the third person. This rule is breached for a few verbs prefixed by mo-, where
the indirect object cannot be third person. Here we substitute the first-person object marker -m for the third-person
marker (Ø-, s-, h-) to indicate that the indirect object of such verbs can be only 1st or 2nd person, e.g. momkerjavs
‘will be prejudiced against me’, as opposed to mihkerjavs ‘will be prejudiced against him/her/it’. Some verbs are
found only in 2nd person forms such as gagimarJos ‘Good luck!’, gagiHaria, ‘Believe me!’ Such expressions
4 Introduction draft of December 16, 2005
are no longer true verbs, and they are given a separate entry where they have an idiomatic meaning which makes
them more interjections, adverbs etc
If the verb has relative forms (with the root prefixed by a-, e-, i-, u-), these too will have separate entries
arranged by alphabetical order. Where a transitive verb has an indirect object and where this is marked by h- or
s- prefixed to the root, such forms are listed not in alphabetical order but straight after the entry without that
prefix: to indicate this suspension of alphabetical order, the h-/s- is printed in superscript before the root. In
certain fossilized cases, e.g. sdeK! ‘Stop!’ the prefix will be counted alphabetically
Verbs which have apart from a direct and/or indirect object a beneficiary, which is indicated by a vowel before the
root are classified as followed: vo indicates a transitive verb in the objective version, with the 3rd person version
prefix u-. Transitive verbs which use the pre-root vowel i- to indicate that they are reflexive have the
classification vs transitive verb in the subjective version; the very few verbs with the pre-root prefix a- indicating
the surface on which something happens are marked as v sup a transitive verb in the superessive version.
Intransitive verbs with the pre-root vowel e- indicating a beneficiary or participant in the action other than the
subject are in this dictionary not considered versional verbs, but are simply marked vi2, an intransitive verb with
two arguments.
After a 3rd person present/future indicative form of the verb, as in KEGL, we give the 3rd person singular aorist
and perfect forms. If the other forms of the aorist are not predictable from the 3rd person singular, we given the
2nd person singular and, occasionally the 3rd person plural. Other irregular forms of the present, imperfect tense
etc follow the perfect form. Many irregular verbs (what Akaki Shanidze called ‘idiosyncratic’ verbs) also have a
separate entry for the aorist, perfect or imperfect tense, wherever these forms are not immediately identifiable with
the present or future indicative.
After a verbal noun (‘masdar’, we give in brackets the 3rd person present or future from which it can be said to
be ‘derived’: users should always consult the entry for the present/future fir the maximum information.
Verb aspect
We have treated the Georgian category of aspect from a liberal point of view; the ‘aspect’ of a verb is indicated
by the English translation. If we translate a Georgian verb with an English present tense, that implies that the verb
is imperfective; if we use a future tense, that implies that the verb is perfective. It often happens that a Georgian
verb can be either imperfective or perfective; the English translation will give the present or future, depending on
the most common usage, but he verb will be marked as I/P, both imperfective and perfective.
When a verb has no prefix in the present tense and is imperfective, the most common meanings of the verb are
arranged according to the prefix that verb takes (making it in theory perfective) in the aorist and perfect tenses. In
theory if not in practice, the meaning of any prefixed perfective verb is to be found in the unprefixed imperfective.
We therefore give at the end of an entry a list of all the other prefixes with which that verb form may be
encountered, and to these prefixed forms we refer the user.
Causatives
Causative in Georgian also have two basic meanings: ‘has sth done by somebody’, or ‘makes sb do something’.
Both meanings use the same construction - the somebody who is made to do sth is an indirect object, the
something that somebody is made to do is a direct object, but the translation given may be one or the other
meaning, whichever is the most likely. Thus in translating negative and future participles and causatives, the user
may have to consider the alternative meaning. Causatives are marked vc; exceptionally, where there are four
arguments they will be marked vc4 e.g. aHlebinebs ‘let’s sb touch sth with sth’: Heli araPrisTvis gvaHlebina
‘She didn’t let us touch (lit put our hand on) anything’
Participles
Participles are translated without any indication of the present or future form, since the masdar or finite forms
from which they are derived are usually easily identified. Certain participles have dual meanings: for instance, the
negative participle with the prefix u- and typically with the suffix -eli may mean either sth ‘not done’ or sth
‘not do-able’. The translation may account only for the more likely meaning. Likewise the future participle
prefixed sa- and typically ending in -eli has two meanings: sth ‘to be done’ and sth ‘for doing sth’, and here
too the translation may not always account for both potential meanings.
5 Introduction draft of December 16, 2005
For non-finite forms of the verb we give the masdar and all the participles (present, future, negative, past passive)
separate entries. The boundaries between a participle and an adjective, or between a verbal noun (‘masdar’) and a
noun are fuzzy, and we have tended to define participle forms as adjectives unless they do not correspond to finite
forms of a verb. It has proved impossible to reach absolute consistency, but we have tended to classify words
according to their semantics, rather than their form.
Such a multiplicity of entries (sometimes twenty finite entries for a verb listed in conventional dictionaries by one
entry) inflates the size of our dictionary, but will, we hope, economize the time employed by the user. All other
procedures seemed to us to have more disadvantages than advantages. Listing forms under a masdar is arbitrary,
since many verbs do not have a masdar, others have a masdar which cannot easily be ascertained, and the masdar
itself has such a range of meanings that it does little to explain the meaning of a finite form. The method chosen
by Tschenkéli to list verbs by root, then by prefixes, is satisfying for a professional linguist, but it can force a lay
user to search for an hour to find a single specific finite form. Until an electronic system is perfected for unifying
the prodigious numbers of forms of a Georgian verb into one entry, the path we have chosen remains the least of
all the evils.
Verb classification
We have simplified considerably the classification of Georgian verbs accepted among linguists and used in
KEGL.. Verbs are classified as transitive, by the criterion that in the second series of tenses (aorist and second
subjunctive) the subject or agent is in the ergative case. If they have a subject and one object (usually direct) then
there is no classification. The transitivity of a verb is indicated by the presence of sb/sth (somebody/something) in
the English translation. If a verb has only a subject (such as tiris, weeps), then it is classified as vt1, i.e. a
transitive verb with only one argument. If a transitive verb has subject, direct object and indirect object, then it is
classified as vt3, a transitive verb with three arguments. (A few transitive verbs have four arguments: they may be
marked vt4, e.g. mixmevs ‘You give the horse some food on my behalf’, or the causative aravis damiXagvrino
Xems patara bixs ‘Don’t let anyone oppress my little lad.’, which will be marked as vc4) A transitive verb with
two arguments is marked vt2 only where it is not apparent from the semantics of the English and the Georgian
that there is a direct object as well as a subject/agent.
Otherwise, if a verb has its subject in the nominative case in the aorist tense, then it is classified as intransitive, vi.
Where it has an indirect object as well (e.g. gamoudis ‘comes out for sb’, ezrdeba ‘sb’s sb (child) grows up’)
then it is classified as vi2. A few intransitive verbs have three arguments. These are marked vi3, e.g.
daesesHeba vi3 will borrow sth from sb, daejaleba vi3 will force sth on sb, or moundeba ‘will require sth for
sth’: PoTamde or dGes movundi siaruls It took me two days to walk to Poti
An intransitive verb is usually followed by an indication of the transitive form from which it can be said to be
derived), and more information on the semantics of the verb may be found under the transitive verb heading.
Other types of verb
Thus we have disposed of the category of ‘middle’ verbs. A limited number of verbs describe a state of affairs
(sth lying about, for instance): these are listed as v stat, or v stat2 where there is a second argument (e.g. sb, the
indirect object, has sth lying about). A very few basic verbs, where the person experiencing or possessing is
regarded as the indirect object and the thing experienced or possessed is the subject, are listed as v inv, inverted
verb. In such case a number of examples of usage are given to clarify how the verb behaves.
Verbs with varying governance are noted, e.g. aicevs which is transitive in the first and second series but
intransitive in the third series is marked vt in aor, vi in pf (aicia, aceula) will rise up
Other parts of speech
Georgian and English conjunctions and interjections do not differ in any major way in Georgian. Postpositions
are another matter. We have separated out from adverbs of place and time those that also function as
postpositions with meaning of English prepositions (e.g. beneath, on top, during, along) and we indicate with pag
or pad that they are postpositions following a noun in the genitive or in the dative.
Old Georgian
Old Georgian (OG) is an all-embracing term for the language as recorded from the 5th to 11th centuries AD. Its
full corpus is still not known, and any dictionary including Old Georgian must be considered provisional. We
