Language Of Confusion: Going In Circles, Part IV

The final part in our series looking at the Proto Indo European sker-, to turn or bend, which is what gave us circle, ring… and this week’s words, which are a lot weirder.
 
The first word we’re looking at this week is—really—range. It showed up in the thirteenth century as renge/rengen, and it meant what we know it as a verb, but meant as a noun meant a row or line of people. The noun started to mean a line or row in general by the fourteenth century, then scope by the late fifteenth century and an area animals seek food in the seventeenth century, and finally row of mountains in the early eighteenth century. Both come from Old French, the noun reng/renge and the verb ranger/rangier, which again meant to put in a row or line. That’s from the Frankish hring, which we went over a few weeks ago as being the origin word for ring, and of course from sker-. No idea how it got from a ring to a line. Those things are kind of opposites.
 
Then there’s arrange—yes, from the same place! Arrange showed up in the late fourteenth century spelled arengen (so, just like range with an a- on the front, how familiar). It actually first meant to draw up a line in battle and wasn’t used much until the late seventeenth century when it started to mean to put in order. It’s from the Old French arengier, to put in battle order or to put in a row, with the a- coming from the prefix ad- and meaning to, so to arrange is to put in a row.
 
And we also have derange, which isn’t used much now except as the adjective deranged. Derange showed up in 1776 meaning to put into confusion or disturb the order of, while deranged didn’t show up until 1790. The words are from the French déranger, to bother, from the Old French desrengier, disarrange. The des- is from dis- and means do the opposite of, so to derange is the opposite of arrange.
 
Okay, you can kind of see how the range words work with sker-, if barely. But search? It showed up in the fourteenth century as serchen, and back then it meant to go through and examine carefully, though the noun version did exist and meant a search for something, and by the fifteenth century that was pretty much what search referred to. It comes from the Old French cerchier, which is from the classical Latin circare, to go around. “Boy, that looks like circle,” you might be saying. Well, yeah, it’s the word we looked at a few weeks ago as being the origin of circle. I really don’t get how we get search from there, but we do, and also research, which showed up in the late sixteenth century. That’s from the Old French recercher, which is just cerchier with the re- prefix added for emphasis. To search is to go around in a circle. To research is to really go around in a circle.
 
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
Encyclopaedia Britannica