Language Of Confusion: -Fer, Redux, Part I

It’s been a while since I’ve done a redo. Mostly because I’ve been busy with those multi-part series. And of course this one is also going to be multi-part. There are a lot of words with -fer in them!
 
First, confer showed up in the mid sixteenth century, but back then it meant to examine by comparison rather than, you know, conversing. About a decade after it appeared, it started to mean to consult with someone about a subject, which led to “bestow as a gift” (like to confer an honor), and about a century after it showed up, it stopped meaning compare and was really only used to mean consulting. It comes from the Old French conférer, from the classical Latin conferre, to compare, a mix of com-, together, and ferre, to bear. Ferre is also from the Proto Indo European bher-, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned at some point, and means to carry or bear, which is the root word we’re going to be looking at here. I also think we’ll only be talking about the words that end in -fer that are from bher-, since other wise this series would never end. I’m sure I’ll get to them at some point, though.
 
Prefer showed up in the late fourteenth century as preferren, coming from the Old French preferer and classical Latin praeferre, which is really just prefer. The prae- means before, while you know what ferre means. So to carry before, which makes sense for something you prefer.
 
Infer showed up in the mid sixteenth century, used in logic before it came into more widespread use. It comes from the classical Latin inferre, to bring in, clearly used more metaphorically over the years. In- means in (shocking!), so with ferre, it’s to carry in. I’m just glad it sounds reasonable.
 
Now, defer has two meanings, one “to delay”, the other “to yield”. And they’re actually from different words, though not too different, as you’ll see. The to delay one showed up in the late fourteenth century, coming from the Old French diferer. You might be saying “that looks an awful lot like differ,” and don’t be ridiculous, differ, which also showed up in the late fourteenth century, comes from the Old French differer. Two Fs. But yeah, before that the two words are from the same place, the classical Latin differre, to differ. The prefix comes from dis-, away from [https://www.etymonline.com/word/dis-], meaning to defer (delay) is to carry away from, and to differ (be different) is also to carry away from.
 
The other defer is kind of related, just not as much as the other defer and differ are. It showed up in the mid fifteenth century, meaning to leave to someone else’s judgment, which then transformed into to yield. It’s from the Old French deferer, from the classical Latin deferre, to refer. See? The prefix here is de-, which means down here, meaning defer is to carry down. As opposed to carry away. So different.
 
Finally today, refer showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French referer and classical Latin referre, to refer or report. The re- means back, so to refer is to carry back.
 
Well. It’s less weird than the defer/differ thing.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language