"Sinew" versus "Sinus"

PIOTR OR JENS WROTE:
<<The anatomical meaning seems to be the latest. Class. Lat. sinus meant
'bosom' as the part of the garment that covers the breast, especially the
fold where you can hide things (hence also 'heart, secret feelings'). It
became an anatomical term (<sân>) in Romanian (which shares so many other
things with the Balkan Latin substrate in Albanian), whereas e.g. It. seno
retains the 'gulf' meaning (as for the rest of Romance, note Fr. sein, Sp.
seno 'breast' etc.). What seems to have been lost everywhere is the meaning
'curve, concavity'. As a result, Alb. gji looks like a word with typically
Romance semantics rather than something independent...
To sum up, we have an Albano-Romance semantic conspiracy, absence of *sinu-
elsewhere in IE (unless I'm missing something)...>>

REPLYING:
I've always been bothered by the supposed lack of connection between sinew
and sinus.

"Curve, concavity" mentioned above also creates convexity. In Latin, <sinus>
meant not only a gulf but also the land that "curved" to form the gulf.
Among the translations of <sinus> in LS are "coils" and the converse images
of the "bag of a fishing net" and the "belly of a sail". While a <sinum> is
a hollow bowl, a female breast is a lump, curved outward.

Latin <sinus> was also used to refer to curls of hair and curved bones, all
suggesting not just a single curve, but a rippling effect ("e corpore
flexos").

"Sinews" and "sinewy", sometimes referring to muscles and tendons visible
through the skin or in the body suggest the same rippling or irregular effect
that would be observable in the folds of a toga, especially in the chest or
on the lap when sitting.

The application of Lat <sinus> to coil or ringlet also suggest a tendon. (If
you've ever pulled one out of a carcass, you know it coils.)

In Greek -- however the sounds are supposed to have traveled -- we see
<inion> referring to the occipital bone in the head, visibly a ripple; from
<is>, tendon (gen, <inus>). The word was used to refer to outward appearance
of musculature, the "ribs of a leaf" and "a strip of papyrus" -- possibly one
that curled. See also <ino:de:s>, defined in L-S as "fiberous", "sinewy".

Also notice in in Greek <simoo:> and <simos>, turning up the nose,a turned-up
nose, bend upwards, bent upwards, but generally "hollow, concave." See also
<simo:ma>, anything turned upwards, i.e, curved upwards.

Doesn't it feel like there were a number of different traditions and
analogies that gave somewhat different semantics to a travelling word that
originally referred to the rippled effect of human and animal bodies and the
practical material that those animal parts would yield? Cf., Grk <himas>,
leathern strap or thong, but also strip, cord -- remembering that tendons
were used to make cords and strings that tigthened when dried, on arrowheads
for example. (See also, Skt, <sinati>, bind).

"Sinew" seems to be considered as solely Germanic in origin, but perhaps
there is some way that it as a trade word underwent peculiar early sound
changes that were lost in time, and so it appears to be another one of those
phonetically difficult "non-IE words" found in Germanic.

Steve Long