*awǭ

The feminine counterpart of *awô. The pair represents secondary n-stem remodeling of the Indo-European kinship term ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root noun *h₂éwh₂-s ~ *h₂uh₂-ós (Kloekhorst 2008: 352–53; Kroonen 2013: 44–45). Proto-Germanic feminine ōn-stems were innovative, with *-ōn- generalized as the feminine counterpart of masculine *-an- (Fulk 2018: 171–72). Continued by Gothic *awō. Compare Latin avia, probably a related feminine formation, though its precise derivation is uncertain (de Vaan 2008: 66, s.v. avus).