Language Of Confusion: Ter, Part I

 This little syllable shows up in a surprising number of places. Some of which make sense considering it’s from the Proto Indo European root ters-, to dry. But for the most part, well…
 
First we’ll look at terra, the word for earth that shows up in a lot of things that we’re looking at today. It’s just Latin for earth, and taken from ters- because “dry land” is the opposite of the sea. It also gave us terrain, which showed up in 1727 meaning specifically ground for training horses before it started meaning tracts of land about three decades later. It’s from the Old French terrain, Vulgar Latin terranum, and classical Latin terrenum, which means the land. There’s also territory, which showed up in the late fourteenth century, from the classical Latin territorium, meaning territory. Though one theory is that the word is actually from terror instead, in the sense you chase off someone from your territory. I have to admit, that would be pretty funny, and it is certainly possible considering how stupid etymology can be.
 
Then, there’s inter, like what you do to dead bodies. It showed up in the fourteenth century (where it could also be spelled enter), from the Old French enterer and Medieval Latin interrare, to bury in the earth. The in- is from the Proto Endo European en, which just means in, and the rest is from terra, so inter is in-earth. Well, that was certainly straightforward.
 
Next a work that might actually surprise you: terrier. Yes, as in a dog! It showed up in the fifteenth century from the Old French chien terrier, a terrier dog… or literally, earth dog. It’s from the Medieval Latin terrarius, which is from terra. Why are the dogs called that? Because they were bred to follow their prey into burrows—as in, the earth.
 
Finally today, let’s look at some anatomy. You know which bone comes from ters-? The tarsus—the ankle bones. It started being used in English in the late seventeenth century, and it’s the literal Latin word for ankle. But of course they took it from the Greek tarsos, which is their word for hock, like the part of an animal, as well as the tarsus bones. But that isn’t the only definition it was known as. It also once meant a flat surface for drying (which is how it’s descended from ters-, which means dry), and when naming stuff for anatomy, people decided to name the flat of the foot after it, because that makes perfect sense.
 
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
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Encyclopaedia Britannica