མཐེ་བོ

Tibetan

Etymology

Hill (2014, 2019) compares the first syllable to Tibetan ཆེ (che, “big”), Burmese တယ် (tai, “very”), as well as 多 (OC *ʔl'aːl, “many, much”). STEDT derives this from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *ta-j (“big”), whose Chinese comparandum is 大 (OC *daːds, “large”) instead; Baxter (1992) has also compared it to this etymon.

Pronunciation

• Old Tibetan: /*mtʰe.bo/
• Lhasa: /tʰe˥˥.poˑ/

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• Old Tibetan:
  • IPA^(key): /*mtʰe.bo/ (reconstructed)
• Ü-Tsang
  • Tibetan pinyin: te^f-bo
  • (Lhasa) IPA^(key): /tʰe˥˥.poˑ/

Noun

མཐེ་བོ • (mthe bo)

1. thumb

   རྐང་པའི་མཐེ་བོ ― rkang pa'i mthe bo ― big toe

Related terms

• མཐེབ (mtheb)