Language Of Confusion: Pere-, Part IV

Here we go! Last one! And I’ve saved the weirdest ones for last, lucky you. We’re looking at words that come from the Proto Indo European pere-, which means to produce or procure, and while the words it’s spawned have made sense—somewhat—that doesn’t mean they aren’t weird.

 
First today, poor. Yep. That poor. It showed up in the thirteenth century with pretty much the same definition, coming from the Old French povre, poor. And that V being in there makes a lot more sense when you find out that poverty is from the same place, having shown up even earlier in the late twelfth century. Both words are from the classical Latin pauper, which, I mean, we have that in English, too, though it didn’t appear until the early sixteenth century. So how is it related to pere-? Well, the first half of the word, pau-, comes from the Proto Indo European pau-, which means few or little. The -per comes from pere-. Poor is to procure too little.
 
Surprising, yes, but believable. Sever, on the other hand… Really. Sever and several are from pere-. Sever showed up in the fourteenth century while several didn’t show up until the early fifteenth century, where it actually meant existing apart before morphing to more than one a century later. Sever comes from the Anglo French severer and Old French sevrer, to separate, from the Vulgar Latin seperare, which is from the classical Latin separare, to separate. Several comes from the Anglo French several, from the Old French seperalis, which can also be traced to separare. We’ve actually talked about the parare part before, and it means to prepare, and the se- means apart. To prepare apart is to sever, and somehow that’s also several.
 
Next, spar. Yes, like fighting. Remember how we talked about parry being from pere-? Of course you do. And spar is the same. I mean, kind of. It showed up in the late fourteenth century, meaning to rush or dart, and that’s thought to be from the French esparer, to kick, and Italian sparare, to shoot or scatter. That’s a mix of the prefix ex-, out, and our old friend parare. Basically to “prepare out” became to fling, and that somehow got to spar.
 
Finally… viper. Yes, like the snake. Have I done this word before? Maybe. Whatever. It showed up in the early fifteenth century from the Old French vipere, from the classical Latin vipera, viper. The vi- comes from the Proto Indo European gwei-, to live (because most vipers give birth to live young rather than lay eggs). The per- part of the word comes from parire, which as I’ve mentioned previous weeks means to be fertile, and it means that because it’s from pere- and to produce can also mean to produce children. So that and a quirk of this particular reptile’s biology is why we call them vipers.

 
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
Fordham University

Language of Confusion: Solid Snakes

It’s October! Yay! Time to think up some scary things to etymologize! First up: snakes. Although I’m not scared of them, I know people who are, and supposedly they are one of the things that humans are instinctually afraid of. So let’s see where their names come from!

Snake

Snake comes from the Old English snaca and before that the Proto Germanic snakon, which can be traced back to the Proto Indo European word sneg, which means to crawl or a thing that creeps along. The word serpent was also used as a name for the wormy reptiles, and it showed up in the early fourteenth century. It comes from the Old French serpent/sarpent and classical Latin serpentem, which just means snake but also has a verb form, serpere, that means to creep. Serpere can also be traced back to a Proto Indo European word, serp, which means to crawl or creep. So because Proto Indo European had two words for crawl, we now have two words meaning snake. Sure.

Cobra

And now for actual types of snakes. Cobra showed up in 1802—an actual year! But before that it was the phrase cobra capello, which showed up in the late seventeenth century and comes from the Portuguese cobra de capelo, which literally means hooded snake. Cobra can also be traced to the classical Latin colubra, which means…snake. So because it kind of looked like it had a hood, it was a hooded snake. I guess this means that a “cobra snake” is just a snake snake.

Python

Python showed up in the late sixteenth century, although it wasn’t used as a name for a class of snakes until the early nineteenth century. The word came to us by way of Latin, but it was taken from a Greek myth where the god Apollo killed a serpent named Python. I guess they needed a new snake name and just thought python sounded cool.

Viper

Viper first showed up in the early fifteenth century, coming from the Middle French vipere and classical Latin vipera, yet another word for snake. Vipera is actually a contraction of vivipera, a combination of the words vivus (living) and parere (to bear). It’s basically a reference to how some snakes in cooler climates don’t lay eggs but keep them inside the mother’s body so they’re kind of born live rather than hatch later. Most (but not all!) kinds of vipers give birth like that so the name is fairly appropriate.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Dictionary.com

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Encyclopaedia Britannica

University of Ottawa, Canada

Live Science