This article examines the meanings and etymologies of several problematic Sogdian lexemes.I am very much obliged to Dr. J. Cheung (Leiden), Professor V. Livšic (St. Petersburg), P. Lurje (St. Petersburg), Professor M. Schwartz (Berkeley) and Professor N. Sims-Williams (London) who took pains to read the first drafts of this article and made valuable remarks, to Dr. B. Williams (Berkeley) who was very helpful in the matter of everything Chinese, to M. Ellsworth (Berkeley), A. Kassian (Moscow) and A. Kozák (Berkeley) who corrected my style. Final decisions are, of course, my own and none of those listed above are responsible for my errors. I am also grateful to the Houtan foundation (www.houtan.org) for its generous financial support, without which the completion of this article would hardly have been possible.