Wurdahuzdą: Proto-Germanic dictionary — *blauþuzScott K. ShayWardja Presshttps://protogermanic.org/pgmc_blauþuz
Single-entry extract from the dictionary. Cross-references to other entries point to their identifiers in the full dictionary.
A Handbook of Germanic EtymologyVladimirOrelBrill2003
adju-stemweak, feeble, emaciatedlacking, void, nakedsoft, faint-hearted, gentleUncertain. A speculative derivation would be from the Proto-Indo-European root family *bʰel- / *bʰlew- / *bʰlewH- ‘blow, swell; overflow’, perhaps via a *-tu-derivative such as pre-Germanic *bʰlów-tu-s. The semantic development ‘weak, timid, cowardly’ would require several intermediate steps such as ‘swollen, puffed up’ → ‘soft, yielding’ → ‘feeble’. But this puts it right in line with *blautaz (‘soft; exhausted; emptied out; spent; fainthearted; bare; naked’) which Lehmann (1986b: s.v. *blauþjan) and Orel 2003: 48 seem to support. A derivation from PIE *ml- seems to be difficult phonologically.