ni-

From earlier *niwi-, before a regular sound change in which non-word-initial *w was lost before fully unstressed *i. The same sound change occurred to ǣ (“law”) ← *ǣi ← *āwi, sǣ (“sea”) ← *sǣi ← *sāwi, and glī (“joy”) ← *gliwi. It must have also occurred to nīewe (“new”) in the nominative singular, producing *nī ← *niwi, but its *w was restored by analogy with its inflected forms, which had a following *j instead of *i.

Meaning

Etymology