§ Uvanwaith ’Nomenlands’, ’Noman’s Land’ (TI:281,283,314)
This is the land lying between the Border Hills (Emyn Rhain, see 2.37) and Mordor.
The name has been discussed in Lambengolmor #847 (and answers, [1]). While the final element is clearly lenited gwaith, literally ’manhood, also used = man-power, troop of able-bodied men, host, regiment’ (weith under WEG-, VT46:21) and is by extension used to denote a region in many place-names as in Enedwaith ’Middlemarch’ (TI:304), there seem to be two possibilities for the etymology of the first element.
It could be formed by the negative prefix #uv- (lenited from UMU-, see UGU-) + N. anw ’male’ (ƷAN-), compare Q. Úner ’Noman’ (UT:211), which must be formed with nér ’man’ (NDER-, MR:213) or Goldogrin unweg ’nobody, no one’ (GL:73), formed with gweg ’man, male of Elda or Indi’ (GL:44).
Another possibility may be a formation with negative u- as in úan ’monster’ < ūbanō (BAN-) and lenited #man, a general pronoun *’somebody, someone’. It is only attested as an interrogative, e.g. in Namárië; but compare the indefinite suffixed article of Early Qenya -ma (PE14:42) and the later pronoun ma ’something, a thing’ (VT42:34), which may be also contained in the interrogative mana?, compounded *’what-is?’ (PM:395). See also mo ’somebody, someone’ (VT42:34).