peace
PEES · noun
Origin
English peace comes from Middle English pees, borrowed from Anglo-Norman peis and Old French pais, from Latin pāx, itself from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ḱ- meaning 'to fasten, stick, place.'
This is Curio: one word's origin story, every morning. No feed, no backlog.
One short email each morning. Free; stop anytime. See a sample →
Journey
The word traveled from Latin pāx through Old French pais and Anglo-Norman peis before settling into Middle English as pees, eventually becoming the English peace we use today.
Related words
It's a doublet of pax, and it's tied to Latin pacīscor ('agree, stipulate') and pangō ('fasten, fix'), the same root behind pact — since peace originally meant something firmly agreed upon.