I am unhappy with this circumspect way to say 'to lose something'. hehta- would be fine bit it implies intention to me. I feel there would be an active verb to express this, not just auta-/vanya- Maybe *aulehta-?

+Tamas Ferencz stir up the Discord guys. They are creative.

Why not pure lec-?

+Ицхак Пензев to me 'loose' is not the same as 'lose', again the former implies intention

Yet another possibility for an explicitly active form is to work from a transitive causative like *telta- “(lit.) to cause to end, cause to cease”. Then associating possession, say by a prefix au- or auvie-, gives *autelta- “to cause possession-cessation, end possession (of something), cease possessing (something)”. Other roots or constructs for possession could also yield that structure.

+Robert Reynolds good thinking, but isn't 'cause to end' basically the same as 'finish, conclude'?
On the other hand, there's the verb aukir- which is specifically glossed as "cut off (and get rid of or lose a portion) so I think you are on the right track, I thought along similar lines when I suggested *aulehta-.

+Tamas Ferencz​​​​​​ They’re definitely related, but to me, “to finish, conclude” can have a different implication or usage than “to cause to cease, stop”: one can use the former to say “I finished/wrapped up a project at work” and the latter to say “I ended/cancelled the project.”

*aulehta- “to release/unbind away/off” also makes sense to me, and if *lek- is interpreted as “to unbind” it could work too: √lek is a fitting root. Sometimes it seems to imply deliberate intention, though, and one would have to differentiate the meanings. The nuances are subtle: the same interpretation could be made of *telta-.

Another approach that avoids intent, though I'm unclear how to implement it, is a negative inceptive: "to become not possessing something". Constructs like ?*alaulata- come to mind but those forms may not continue to negate the adjective, iirc. I'm not at home so PE22 isn't at hand.

Maybe, penta- < √PEN (PE17:173)?

I think your phrase captures the feeling of loss. The man from whom everything has gone.

just checked eldamo. The adjective vanwa includes the meaning of lost - Q. vanwa adj. “gone (for good), lost, departed, vanished, past, over, passed away, dead”

Maybe rephrasing with the adjective to describe the present state would add more pathos, though it is not the exact English verb tense.

ner yello illi vanwa na. Or perhaps yenna
"for whom"...

+Evan A indeed it's probably our safest bet to presume that Quenya doesn't possess an active verb "to lose sg" but expresses it as "it's gone from me".

Macilinya vanwa na.
Sa Masse?
La istan.
Ma hirnes?
Nato. Limbe...mal...ce nyello oio vanes na...

Vanes should be vanwa. Autocorrecters

+Evan A you may edit messages!