Words from Proto-Italic

Family

Proto-Italic grew out of Proto-Indo-European.

The words, A to Z

• agent

  The person who gets things done was, grammatically speaking, born mid-action.

• arid

  This word for parched land grew out of a verb that simply meant 'to be dry.'

• armor

  The gear that protects a body traces back to the joints that hold one together.

• brief

  This word for 'short' has been shrinking things down since before Rome was writing them.

• cadence

  The rhythm of your speech shares a secret history with gravity itself.

• cost

  Before it meant what you owe, it meant what stands firm beside something else.

• currency

  Money that moves is, at its root, just money that runs.

• December

  The last month of the year still carries the number ten in its bones.

• delight

  The spelling looks like it has 'light' hiding inside it — but that's just a happy accident of English.

• dementia

  This word literally means being led away from your own mind.

• dictator

  The word for an absolute ruler was once just a job title for someone whose job was to talk.

• dignity

  The word for self-worth once meant something closer to being deemed worth taking seriously.

• diva

  Before she was a temperamental star, she was a goddess — literally.

• eager

  A word that once meant sharp as vinegar now describes a sharp appetite for something.

• exercise

  A word built from 'out' plus a root meaning to keep something shut in — training as a kind of controlled release.

• exhaust

  To use something up completely, you first have to draw it all the way out.

• fender

  Something that fends off harm turns out to just be a job title in disguise.

• fertilizer

  The 'one who does it' ending turns a verb for making things fruitful into the name of the stuff that does the work.

• frigid

  This word for bitter cold was built from Latin's own way of saying 'to be cold.'

• furnace

  This word for a fire-chamber has been quietly glowing since a Proto-Indo-European root for 'warm' first split off a suffix.

• immune

  To be immune is, literally, to be let off the hook.

• infer

  To infer is to carry a conclusion in from the evidence, rather than have it handed to you outright.

• January

  This month is named for a god with two faces, one looking back and one looking ahead.

• Jupiter

  The king of the Roman gods carries a name that's really just a title: Dad, of the sky.

• justice

  The word for fairness itself was once tangled up with sacred formulas.

• linguistics

  A tongue-rooted word built to name the study of tongues themselves.

• meridian

  The line that splits the day at its highest, brightest point.

• motivate

  Behind every push to act hides an old word for simply moving.

• peace

  The calm we call peace was once just a deal that had been nailed down tight.

• port

  The word for a harbor and the word for a ship's left side share the same old root for 'crossing.'

• propeller

  The thing that pushes a ship or plane forward is, quite literally, named for its job of pushing.

• reinforce

  This word is just 'force' with an extra push already built into it.

• replace

  To put something back where it belongs — or to put something new in its spot.

• republic

  A word that quietly names government as everyone's business, not one person's.

• resistor

  Something that pushes back gets a name built right into its grammar.

• spectrum

  This word for a range of colors or possibilities started out meaning nothing more solid than a ghostly appearance.

• stanza

  A poem's paragraph was once just a place to stop and stand.

• stellar

  Every time you call something out of this world, you're quietly borrowing the sky's oldest name for itself.

• street

  Every road you call a street was, at its root, just something that got flattened out.

• vine

  The plant that gave wine its name is the same word that climbs your trellis.

• vocal

  This word for anything voiced traces straight back to the sound of a voice itself.

• wine

  This word for fermented grape drink has been passed hand to hand across Europe for thousands of years without changing its core sound.