Language Of Confusion: Ne-, Part I

Yet another small Proto Indo European word that shows up in a bunch of stuff, most of which you can kind of see. But of course there are some weirdos in there.
 
The word that started me down this particular rabbit hole is negative. It showed up in the late fourteenth century, so three hundred years before negate in 1795. It comes from the Anglo French negatif, Old French negatif, and classical Latin negativus, all with roughly the same meaning we use. It’s from the verb negare, to deny, and that is from the Proto Indo European root ne-, which means not. Negative is not.
 
How about a bunch of other words that look similar but have completely different meanings? Take neglect for example. It showed up in the sixteenth century from the classical Latin neglectus, (neglect), from its verb form neglegere (to ignore). The first part is from ne-, so it means not, and legere I looked at not too long ago as the origin of -lect/-log/-leg words and means to collect or gather. To neglect is to not collect or gather. Because you’re ignoring it. Fun fact, somehow negligee is from neglegere, too. We have French to thank for that one, as a negligee was called that because in the eighteenth century it was considered the opposite of the full outfit women wore.
 
Next, negotiate, which showed up in the late sixteenth century from negotiation, which showed up in the early fifteenth century. It’s from the Old French negociacion and classical Latin negotiationem, business. The -otium part literally means ease or leisure, so with ne- meaning not, business is not leisure. I guess that’s why you negotiate it.
 
Then there’s renege, which showed up in the mid sixteenth century, though back then it meant to deny, not meaning to go back on your word until the late eighteenth century. It’s from the Medieval Latin renegare, with the re- prefix thought to just be intensive here, and negare of course meaning to deny. So to renege initially meant when you were really denying something. Renegade is actually from the same word. It showed up in the late sixteenth century actually from the Spanish renegado, which originally referred to a Christian who became a Muslim. The word is from the Medieval Latin renegatus, which is the noun version of renegare. A renegade was originally just someone who started following a different faith. Which of course was a big issue back in the fifteen hundreds.
 
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
Fordham University

Language of Confusion: Legs, Part IV

More -lect words, because boy are there a lot of them.

Lecture showed up in the fourteenth century meaning written works or literature, then learning from books before what we known it as. It comes from the Medieval Latin lectura, a reading, and classical Latin lectus, which is the past participle of legere, a word we should all be familiar with by now. Legere has a few different meanings, like select and choose, but to read is also one of them that formed a bit later, and kind of makes some of the other -lect words make more sense. Almost.

Plus there are other word related ones, like lesson, which showed up in the early thirteenth century from the Old French leçon, from the classical Latin lectionem, a reading. Basically it’s a -lect word that got softened by French. Then there’s lexicon, from the Middle French lexicon or Latin lexicon, which all are just lexicon. It didn’t change much over the years, is what I’m saying. It’s from the Greek lexikon, which, yeah, also just lexicon, and is from their word legein, to say.

Switching gears, let’s go look at neglect. It showed up in the sixteenth century from the classical Latin neglectus, the past participle of neglegere, to neglect or be indifferent to. The ne is from a Proto Indo European root, ne-, meaning not, while legere is select or choose and the g… is just there. Anyway, put it all together and it’s “to not select” which… I guess follows.

Next, intellect and intelligence, which both showed up in the fourteenth century from the Old French intellect and intelligence. Not much imagination there. They’re both traced to the classical Latin intelligere, to understand, a combination of inter- (between) and legere, read or select. So it’s read or select between? What?

And that’s it for this week, although there are STILL words to look at. As a couple of people have already pointed out, this series has legs.

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

University of Ottawa, Canada