This is mainly for Marc Verhaegen's eyes,
regarding all those Germanic cords and strings we've pulled
together.
OE tawian, p. tawode (< *taw-o:-j-an-) is a
pretty frequent verb, meaning 'dress, prepare (material)', and the direct
ancestor of Modern English taw. I haven't been able to check the meaning of the
potentially corresponding Old/Middle High German verb. I only know that it
exists.
OE also had te:agan/te:an, p. te:ade (<
*tau-j-an-), which is much rarer but seems to have had the same meaning as
tawian. Its correspond formally to the Gothic, Runic and West Germanic
cognates.
There is also OE tawa (< *taw-o:n-), the
meaning of which is somewhat uncertain; OE dictionaries define it as '(some kind
of) tool', and it reportedly has an Old Dutch cognate meaning '(a weaver's)
tool'
Finally, we have Modern English tool < OE to:l
< *to:(u)-la-n, and of course tow < OE to:w < *to:w-a- '(scutched,
pre-processed) fibres for rope-making'. This seems to be the derivative
connecting the *tau- word-family with ropes and cords.
The Oxford Dictionary posits PGmc. *tau-/*to:u-
'make, prepare'. The most convincigly reconstructable member of this etymon is
the weak verb (in two morphological flavours) *taw-o:-j-an-/*tau-j-an-. Eric
Partridge ventures IE *do(:)u- 'make with hands', but he's hardly a
reliable etymologists; at any rate he offers no non-Germanic cognates, which
makes the reconstruction a mere guess.
Piotr