Proto-North Caucasian: *miʒ_Ă / *ʒ_imiʒĂ
Meaning: a k. of stinging insect
Notes: The original root structure is in this case preserved in PWC. All EC languages reflect an expressive reduplicated form; reduplication was probably favoured by the existence of several semantically close reduplicated insect names (see *cīmc_V, *c̣ĕlc̣ŭ, *ć̣imVć̣V et al.). Otherwise correspondences are regular.
It is, perhaps, possible to find the non-reduplicated stem within EC in Tind. mic:u-q̇u 'tick' (presupposing PA *mic̣:V-q̇:u; Andian loanwords are Inkh. mic̣iq̇u, Tsez. mic̣iq̇u 'tick').
