*himinaz

Unclear, but possibly descending from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éḱmō (‘stone?’) with heavy remodelling, including apparent metathesis similar to Proto-Slavic *kamy. The difference in meaning seems to be bridged by Ancient Greek ἄκμων (ákmōn) (ákmōn), meaning among other things 'meteorite'. Kroonen suggests 'heavenly vault' as the original meaning. Compare also Iranian cognates such as Persian آسمان (âsemân, âsmân, ‘sky, heaven’).

Kroonen proposes descent primarily from the genitive *h₂ḱm̥nós, yielding first in Germanic a paradigm with nominative *hemō, genitive *hemnaz, dative *hemeni, later levelled further to give two parallel stems *hemina- and *hemna-.