The Terminology Tales

The Register

Every root, every word, every dictionary.

Every root the season traces, and every word that carries it, language by language — with the dictionary it was checked against. This is the evidence the season is built on, laid out so that you can check it, and so that the pattern can be seen whole: one sound carrying one sense across families that the textbooks say never met.

7roots
724words
48languages
8episodes

S-K

Episode III · Shook Ones

The cut

s · sh · z + k · q · hard c · g · j

A hiss ground against the teeth (s, sh, z) and severed by the stop at the back of the mouth (k, q, g): the mouth performs a cut every time it says the root, and the root means what the mouth does — to cut, to grind, to sever, to strike, to stop something dead. Its faces are the blade (section, sickle, script, Japanese saku, Akan sekan); the cut in the air that is speech (Akan saka, speak, ask, shukr, shikāyat); the grinding that leaves a thing pure (sugar, azkā, saṃskṛta, the polished rice in the sake cup); the strike (shake, shock, Shaka, sikka); the stillness after (sakīna, sukūn); and what the cut leaves and holds (skin, sack, sock, socket). Turned round, K-S, the stop comes first and the solid shatters into grit: kasara, quash, cassé, and Akan kasa, the block of silence broken into speech. The three pressures — S-K thin, Sh-K loud, Z-K voiced — sort the table, and every pressure is still the cut.

289 words · 34 languages

English 110

  • seekto follow the path something has already cut; Old English sēcan — Watkins’s *sāg-, to track down
  • aska piece of air cut and thrown, the cut at the end where the question stops; Old English āscian
  • sakethe case to be decided, and a decision is a cut; Old English sacu, a lawsuit
  • scholarGreek skholē, leisure — the time cut out of the day and kept for learning
  • scriptthe line cut into wax or stone; Latin scrībere, to scratch — Watkins’s *skrībh-, under *sker-, to cut
  • skepticone who takes a thing apart with the eye before believing it; Greek skeptesthai, to look closely
  • scopethe mark the eye cuts out of the field; Greek skopos, the watcher and the target
  • secretwhat the sieve cuts out and keeps; Latin sēcernere, to sift apart
  • speakbreath cut into words; Old English sprecan, in Alfred’s Pastoral Care
  • sicklethe sweeping blade; Latin secula, from secāre, to cut
  • Saxonthe people of the seax, the single-edged knife — by the old account Watkins passes on with a doubt
  • sector, section, segment, insectpieces cut from a whole; Latin secāre
  • secondthe cut in time, made twice — pars minuta secunda; Chaucer writes secounde in his Boece
  • sketchthe quick strokes that cut a figure onto the page
  • checkthe move cut short — the king stopped dead
  • stickthe wood that pierces; Old English sticca, from a root to prick
  • scrape, scratchthe blade dragged across a surface
  • scalethe plate that flakes off the fish — Watkins’s *skel-, to cut; and the measure, Latin scāla
  • sickthe flow of life cut off; Old English sēoc
  • sackthe hollow a cut leaves, sewn round — Hebrew śaq, by way of Greek sákkos; the pericardial sac
  • sock, socketthe shoe cut to the foot, Latin soccus; and the little soc, the ploughshare — the OED’s oldest socket is a spearhead
  • skinthe hide stripped off — an extension of Watkins’s *sek-, to flay; then the thing that holds the body
  • skepthe hive — the hollow that holds the swarm
  • soak, suck, succulentto draw in and cut off at the throat — every swallow a cut; Old English sūcan
  • skythe vault that holds the winds — the far side of the cut; Old Norse ský, a cloud
  • successto go up through the wall; Latin succēdere
  • sacredcut off and kept; Latin sacer
  • shake, shookwhat a thing does when it has been struck; Old English sceacan, scōc
  • shockthe strike, and the stop it leaves — the circulation struck; Old French choquer, to strike against
  • shacka shaken shelter; perhaps Nahuatl xacalli, a hut
  • shuckthe husk cut open
  • Shakespearethe shaker of the spear — recorded in Gloucestershire in 1248 as Sakespere; and śakti is a spear
  • escape, escapade, scapegoatout through the wall — Latin ex-, the cut in its mirror, K-S, and cappa, the cloak left in the pursuer’s hand
  • squadthe body of men cut into a square; Latin ex- and quadrus, four-cornered
  • echelonthe rung — the ladder cut into steps; Latin scāla, whose s French dropped
  • Escobarthe broom that sweeps clean; Latin scōpae behind a Spanish crutch-vowel
  • shapewhat the cut leaves — you cut away what is not the form; Old English gesceap, from a root Watkins glosses to cut, to scrape, to hack
  • shaveto cut the surface off; the same root as shape
  • decidea decision is a cut; Latin dēcīdere, from dē-, off, and caedere, to cut
  • scripture, scribe, manuscript, prescriptionthe cut that was kept; the one who makes it; the cut made by hand; the thing written beforehand — Latin scrībere, to scratch
  • shear, shareto cut; the piece cut off for you — Watkins’s *sker-, to cut
  • shirt, skirtthe cloth cut short — *sker-
  • shellthe piece that flakes off — Watkins’s *skel-, to cut
  • sculpture, scalpelwhat the carving leaves; the little carver — Latin sculpere, scalpere, under *skel-
  • skillthe clean cut where others make a mess; Old Norse skil, a distinction, under *skel-
  • schismthe split; Greek skhizein, under *skei-, to split
  • science, conscienceto know was to cut one thing from another; Latin scīre, under *skei-, to split
  • sequence, consecutiveto follow the path already cut; Latin sequī
  • sectLatin secta, a path before it was a party; from sequī
  • sugar, saccharin, jaggeryground grit — Sanskrit śarkarā, gravel, by way of Persia, Arabia and Spain; refined by grinding until white
  • quash, concussion, percussionthe mirror, K-S — a solid shattered; Latin quatere, to shake, to strike; quassāre, to shatter
  • sequinthe struck coin; Italian zecchino, from the Venetian mint, the zecca, from Arabic sikka, the die
  • exciseto cut out; Latin ex-, the cut in its mirror, and caedere, to cut
  • psychiatrythe healing of the breath — Greek psȳchḗ and iatreía; German Psychiatrie, 1808 (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the door and key tabs; the case to come
  • whiskerthe hair of the cheek — from whisk, Old Norse visk, a wisp (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the water tab; the case to come
  • skullthe bone of the head — Middle English scolle, of uncertain origin (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • skilletthe small pan — Middle English skelet, perhaps Old French escuelete, the little dish (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the loud tab; the case to come
  • askancesidelong, with suspicion — by 1530, of unknown origin (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the gene and nose tabs; the case to come
  • hibiscusthe marsh mallow — Latin hibiscum, from Greek ibískos, a loan of no sure origin (Beekes, OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • esquirethe shield-bearer, then the gentleman — Latin scūtārius, from scūtum, the shield (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the care tab; the case to come
  • escheatwhat falls to the lord when the line fails — Old French escheoite, a Romance *excadere for Latin excidere (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • disc, discus, desk, disco, discover, describethe flat round; the plate of the games; the writing table; the dance hall; to uncover; to write down — Greek dískos; Latin discooperīre and dēscrībere (Beekes, OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the daisy tab; the case to come
  • taskthe piece of work set — medieval Latin tasca, a turning of taxa (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • tuskthe long tooth — Old English tūsc, tūx; Germanic *tunþska-, from the tooth (OED, Kroonen). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the daisy tab; the case to come
  • saxophonethe horn of Adolphe Sax, 1846 — Sax and phōnḗ (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the pan, jazz and kiss tabs; the case to come
  • duskthe darkening — Old English dox, dark; Germanic *duska- (Kroonen, OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the daisy tab; the case to come
  • mosaicthe picture set in small stones — medieval Latin mūsaicum, of the Muses (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab; the case to come
  • massacrethe slaughter of many — French massacre, of uncertain origin (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the muse and care tabs; the case to come
  • custom, costumethe habit, the usage; the dress of a time or a part — Latin cōnsuētūdō; Italian costume, the same word (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the side and jazz tabs, and custom on the atom tab; the case to come
  • case, casethe instance; the box — Latin cāsus, the fall; Latin capsa, the chest (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the jazz tab; the case to come
  • scabbardthe sheath of the sword — Anglo-Norman escaubers, a Germanic compound (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the bar, earth and cow tabs; the case to come
  • maskthe false face — French masque, Italian maschera, perhaps Arabic maskhara (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab; the case to come
  • shacklethe fetter — Old English sceacul, sceacel (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the call tab; the case to come
  • sagewise; the wise one — Old French sage, from Latin sapere, to taste, to be wise (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • sapient, savant, savour, savvywise; the learned one; the taste; the knowing — Latin sapere, to taste, to be wise (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the dictionary’s own sage
  • sagacious, sagacitykeen of scent, keen of judgment; the keenness — Latin sagāx (OED, de Vaan); Watkins *sāg-, to seek out, which he gives seek too. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and sagacity on the side tab; the case to come
  • sagto sink, to droop — Middle English saggen, perhaps Scandinavian (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • siege, seat, sessionthe sitting-down before a city; the place of sitting; the sitting — Latin sedēre, to sit, and Old Norse sæti (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and seat on the side tab; the case to come
  • sojourn, sigilthe stay for a while; the small seal — Old French sojorner; Latin sigillum (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and sojourn on the care and run tabs; the case to come
  • usagethe custom of use — Latin ūsus (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the safe tab; the case to come
  • massagethe kneading of the body — French masser (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab; the case to come
  • misogynythe hatred of women — Greek mîsos and gynḗ (OED, Beekes). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the muse and gene tabs; the case to come
  • prescribeto set down as the rule, to order, and the physician’s word for the ordering of a remedy; first, to write before — Latin praescrībere, prae, before, and scrībere, to write (OED, de Vaan); Watkins *skrībh-, to cut: Episode III reads its noun, prescription, and the S-K register carries it. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the far, care, rib and rice tabs
  • disgustthe loathing, the taste turned against a thing — French desgoust, dis- and goust, from Latin gustus, the taste (OED, de Vaan); Watkins *geus-, to taste, to choose. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the jazz, side, daisy and kiss tabs; the case to come
  • Jessicathe name Shakespeare gave Shylock’s daughter in The Merchant of Venice — probably from the biblical Iscah, Hebrew Yiskāh, the daughter of Haran, Genesis 11:29 (Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges; Brown, Driver and Briggs). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the jazz tab; the case to come
  • Chicagothe city on Lake Michigan — a French spelling of the Miami-Illinois šikaakwa, the wild leek (McCafferty); a Canadian French form of an Algonquian word, Fox for the place of the wild onion or Ojibwa for at the skunk place (Bright). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the cage tab; the case to come
  • discussto shake a matter apart in talk — Latin discutere, to shake apart, dis and quatere, to shake (OED, de Vaan); Watkins *kwēt-, to shake. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the jazz, kiss and daisy tabs; the case to come
  • cicadathe large insect of the summer trees, whose males sing shrilly — Latin cicāda (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the God tab; the case to come
  • schedulethe timetable, the list of what is to be done and when; first, a slip of paper with writing on it — Middle English sedule, from Old French cedule, from late Latin schedula, the little sheet, the diminutive of scheda, a leaf of papyrus (OED), said with sk- in America and with sh- in Britain. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the God, cage, call, side, tell and yell tabs; the case to come
  • secularof the world, not of the church — Old French seculer, from Latin saeculāris, of the age, from saeculum, the generation, the age, in Church Latin the world (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the call, key and yell tabs; the case to come
  • skimto take the scum off the top; to pass lightly over — probably Old French escumer, from escume, the scum (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the gem tab; the case to come
  • scamthe swindle — originally American slang, first recorded in 1963, of unknown origin (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the gem tab; the case to come
  • skitthe short comic sketch; earlier, a satirical hit, a jibe — of uncertain origin, perhaps from the verb skit, to dart off, beside Old Norse skjóta, to shoot (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the God tab; the case to come
  • schizophreniathe disorder of the mind in which thought, feeling and perception come apart from what is real; the physician’s word — German Schizophrenie, Eugen Bleuler’s coinage, from Greek skhízein, to split, and phrḗn, the midriff, the mind (OED, Beekes). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the God, daisy, safe, far, run, nay and kiss tabs; the case to come
  • scantbarely enough, too little — Old Norse skamt, the neuter of skammr, short (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the gene and net tabs; the case to come
  • scumthe froth that rises to the top; the worthless, the vile — probably Middle Dutch schūme, the foam (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the gem tab; the case to come
  • skithe long runner for the snow — Norwegian ski, from Old Norse skíð, a billet of split wood, a snowshoe (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • skatethe blade bound to the boot for the ice — Dutch schaats, perhaps from Old Northern French escache, a stilt (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the God tab; the case to come
  • scarthe mark a healed wound leaves — Old French escare, late Latin eschara, from Greek eskhára, the hearth, the scab of a burn (OED, Beekes). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the care tab; the case to come
  • schemethe plan, the design — Latin schēma, from Greek skhêma, the form, the figure (OED, Beekes). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the gem tab; the case to come
  • scoutthe one sent ahead to look and listen — Old French escoute, the listening, from escouter, to listen, Latin auscultāre (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the God tab; the case to come
  • section · sector · segment · insectthe part cut off; the slice of a circle; the piece cut from a whole; the animal cut into segments — Latin sectiō, sector, segmentum and īnsectum, all on secāre, to cut (OED, de Vaan); Watkins *sek-, to cut: Episode III reads them as pieces cut from a whole, and the S-K register carries them. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and section on the kiss and sun tabs, and sector and insect on the God tab, and sector on the door tab, and segment on the gem, man and net tabs, and insect on the nose tab
  • physicsthe science of matter and its motion — Latin physica, Greek phusiká, the natural things, from phúsis, nature (OED, Beekes). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the face and kiss tabs; the case to come
  • passagethe way through, the going across — French passage, from Latin passus, the step (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the face tab; the case to come
  • securitythe being safe, free from danger or care — Latin sēcūritās, from sēcūrus, free of care, sē-, without, and cūra, care (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the your, key and earth tabs; the case to come
  • obscuredark, hidden, hard to make out, little known — Old French obscur, Latin obscūrus, dark (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the your, best and key tabs; the case to come
  • whiskthe small bunch of twigs, straw or hair for sweeping; the quick light sweep; the kitchen tool that beats eggs and cream — Middle English wisk, probably from Old Norse visk, the wisp (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the water and best tabs; the case to come
  • toxicpoisonous, of poison — late Latin toxicus, from Latin toxicum, the poison, Greek toxikón, the poison for arrows, from tóxon, the bow (OED, Beekes). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the duck and kiss tabs; the case to come
  • signalthe sign given, the sign that carries word — Old French signal, medieval Latin signāle, from Latin signum, the sign (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the nail and gene tabs; the case to come
  • whisky · whiskeythe water of life, cut short — Scottish Gaelic uisge beatha, Irish uisce beatha (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the water, key and best tabs; the case to come

Old Norse 5

  • skakato shake — what a thing does when it has been struck
  • rannsakato search a house — the trail followed through it; ransack; Watkins’s *sāg-
  • skaldthe poet who cuts speech into measure
  • skila distinction — the clean cut; skill
  • sagathe tale, the thing said — from segja, to say (OED, Kroonen). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come

Greek 9

  • skopos, skeptesthai σκοπόςthe watcher; to look closely
  • psykhē ψυχήbreath, the soul — the breath the throat cuts off, held between the lips’ p and the throat’s kh
  • sákkos σάκκοςthe sack, a Semitic loan — the hollow a cut leaves, sewn round
  • skholē σχολήleisure — the time cut out of the day and kept for learning
  • Asklēpiós, Asclepius Ἀσκληπιόςthe healer; the English — the serpent’s hiss and strike
  • skhizeinto split; schism
  • sákkharonsugar, from Pali sakkharā — the grit on its way to Rome
  • obelískos ὀβελίσκοςa little spit; the obelisk — obelós, a spit (OED, Beekes). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the ball tab; the case to come
  • didáskeinto teach — didáskein (Beekes). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the dot, daisy and gene tabs; the case to come

Latin 17

  • secāreto cut
  • sequīto follow — to go where something has already cut a path; sequence, second, sect
  • sacercut off from human use and given to a god; sacred
  • saccus, soccusthe sack, the hollow sewn round; the slipper cut to the foot
  • scrībereto scratch, to incise — to cut a line into wax or stone; script, scripture, scribe (de Vaan; Watkins’s *skrībh-, under *sker-)
  • sculpereto carve; sculpture, scalpel
  • scīreto know — to cut one thing from another; science, conscience
  • sēcernereto sift apart; secret
  • caedereto cut; decide, excise
  • quatere, quassāreto shake, to strike; to shatter — the mirror, K-S; quash, concussion, percussion, French casser
  • saccharumsugar, from Greek sákkharon; Saccharum officinarum, the cane, in Gerard’s Herball of 1597
  • auscultāreto listen — auris, the ear, and a word for hearing (de Vaan); auscultate, the physician’s verb. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and auscultate on the dot tab; the case to come
  • discutereto shake apart — dis and quatere, to shake; discuss; and cuss, the American curse (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • sēcūrusfree of care; secure — sē- and cūra (OED, de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the care tab, and sēcūrus on the rice tab; the case to come
  • mūsicathe art of the Muses; music — Mūsa, Greek Moûsa (OED, Beekes). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab; the case to come
  • salvia, sagethe herb — from salvus, safe, whole, for its healing (OED, de Vaan): the other word sage. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the salt tab; the case to come
  • piscisthe fish — piscis (de Vaan). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the face and kiss tabs; the case to come

Sanskrit 9

  • śakti शक्तिpower; the goddess — and, in the same entry of Monier-Williams, a spear
  • śakto be able — the power that is a spear in śakti
  • śikṣālearning — a mark cut into the mind; and the Vedic science of where every sound is cut
  • saṃskṛtaput together, polished, perfected — the rough ground off; sam, together, and kṛta, made, with an s between: S-K-R-T beside script’s S-K-R-P-T
  • sākṣīthe witness — with an eye
  • śuṣkadry — the water cut off
  • śarkarāgravel, grit; and so sugar — ground grit, the word that travelled
  • saṃskāraa rite; and an impression, the groove cut into the mind by a repeated act (Monier-Williams)
  • prākṛtaPrakrit — the natural, the raw: the speech not yet ground

Punjabi 1

  • Sikhthe learner — learning is a mark cut into the mind

Hindi · Urdu 4

  • sīkhnā, sikhānāto learn; to teach — the mark cut into the mind
  • sūkhādry — the water cut off
  • sakhīthe friend who keeps what you cut from yourself and hand her
  • sajan, sajjanthe beloved; the good man — Sanskrit sajjana (Platts, Monier-Williams). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the gene tab; the case to come

Urdu 11

  • sukūn سکونstillness, peace — what the cut leaves; and the circle over a consonant that says: stop here
  • shikāyat شکایتthe complaint — pain cut into words; Qur’an 12:86, ashkū
  • shauq شوقpassion
  • mushkil مشکلdifficult — a shape that will not cut clean
  • shukriya شکریہthank you — the cut made and handed back
  • zāʾiqa ذائقہtaste
  • zikr ذکرremembrance — the name said until it is cut into the heart
  • shakkar شکرsugar — ground grit
  • sikkāa coin — the struck piece; Arabic sikka
  • shakl, shakalthe face, the looks, the appearance; the common spelling — Arabic shakl, the form, the shape, sh-k-l (Wehr, Lane); Urdu shakl, said shakal (Platts). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the call tab; the case to come
  • tazkirathe memoir, the lives of the poets and the saints — Arabic tadhkira, the reminder, dh-k-r, to remember (Wehr, Lane); Urdu tazkira (Platts). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the dot, care and daisy tabs; the case to come

Arabic 41

  • shukr شُكرthanks — the word cut out of you and handed back to the one who gave
  • ash-Shakūr, shākir الشَّكور · شاكِرthe Ever-Thankful, one of the ninety-nine names of God (Qur’an 35:30, 35:34, 42:23, 64:17) — the One who repays a small deed with a great reward; and the thankful: Shakur, the name Afeni Shakur gave her son
  • Shākira, Shakira شاكِرةthe grateful one; the common spelling
  • shakl شَكلform, shape — what the cut leaves
  • shakīl, Shakeel, Shakil شَكيلwell-formed, handsome, and the name; its common spellings — the shape the cut left; Shaquille
  • mushkil مُشكِلdifficult — a shape that will not cut clean
  • shakk شَكّdoubt — and, in Wehr, the same root is to pierce, to run through: the mind run through
  • shaykh شَيخthe elder whose word decides, and a decision is a cut — Cheikh, Sheck; ‘a title of honour’ in Bedwell, 1615
  • sakīna سَكينةtranquillity — the stillness a cut leaves; Qur’an 9:26, after Ḥunayn
  • sukūn سُكونstillness, peace — what the cut leaves; and the circle over a consonant that says: stop here
  • sākin ساكِنat rest, stopped; a dweller
  • dhikr ذِكرremembrance of God — the name said until it is cut into the heart
  • zakāt زَكاةthe alms that purify — two and a half per cent cut from the wealth
  • tazkiya تَزكِيةpurification of the self — the wrong ground off
  • azkā أزكىthe purest — what is left when the impurity has been ground off; Azka; Qur’an 18:19, 2:232
  • Zakariyyā, Zakariya, Zakaria زَكَرِيّاZechariah; the common spellings — God has remembered
  • thāqib ثاقِبthe piercing star — the point that cuts through the night; Saquib
  • sukkar سُكَّرsugar — ground grit, Sanskrit śarkarā by way of Persia
  • ashkū, sh-k-wI complain (Qur’an 12:86, Jacob) — pain cut into words; the root of shikāya, Urdu shikāyat
  • shaqqa, sh-q-qto split, to cleave — and the moon was split (54:1)
  • shaqīqathe migraine, the pain of half the head — Greek hēmikrania, half-skull, cuts the same head in the same place
  • ishtiqāqetymology — the splitting-off; the science this show practises is, in Arabic, a cut
  • sikkīnthe knife — called so, say the classical lexicographers, because it stills what it cuts (s-k-n)
  • sikka, sakkathe die a coin is struck with, and the coin; to strike, to mint — the sequin
  • kasara, k-s-rto break — the mirror, K-S: a solid shattered into grit
  • kasrathe vowel mark under a consonant — the grammarians named it the break
  • qaṣṣa, q-ṣ-ṣto clip, to shear; miqaṣṣ, scissors — and to follow a track (28:11, quṣṣīhi), and so qiṣṣa, a story: cut and follow in one root
  • sakanato be still, to come to rest, to dwell — the last thing a cut does
  • zakīpure — what the grinding leaves; Hebrew zakh
  • ʿishq عِشقthe love that clings — ʿ-sh-q, the bindweed that twines, by the account Lane records (Wehr, Lane). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • misk, miskīn مِسكthe musk; the poor — misk; s-k-n (Wehr, Lane). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab, miskīn on the gene tab as well; the case to come
  • sajda, sujūd سَجدةthe prostration, the forehead to the ground; the act itself — s-j-d, sajada, to bow down (Wehr, Lane): wa-sjud wa-qtarib, prostrate and draw near (Qur’an 96:19). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • masjid, mosque مَسجِدthe place of prostration — s-j-d (Wehr, Lane); English mosque through Spanish mezquita, Italian moschea and French mosquée (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • Sājida, Sājid ساجِدةthe one who prostrates, a woman’s name, and a man’s — the participle of sajada (Wehr). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • sajjāda, as-Sajjād سَجّادةthe prayer rug; the much-prostrating, the name given to ʿAlī Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn — s-j-d (Wehr, Lane). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • jazāka llāh · JazakAllahmay God reward you, the thanks said among Muslims, in full jazāka llāhu khayran, may God reward you with good; its common spelling — j-z-y, to repay (Wehr, Lane). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the jazz, call and Allah tabs; the case to come
  • ghasaq · ghāsiqthe darkness of the night’s beginning; the dark that comes on, the night — gh-s-q (Wehr, Lane): aqimi ṣ-ṣalāta li-dulūki sh-shamsi ilā ghasaqi l-layl, perform the prayer from the sun’s decline to the darkness of the night (Qur’an 17:78); wa-min sharri ghāsiqin idhā waqab, and from the evil of the darkness when it settles (Qur’an 113:3). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the jazz and kiss tabs; the case to come
  • ar-Razzāq · rizq · rizkthe Provider, who creates every creature’s means of life and gives it to them, one of the ninety-nine names of God; the provision, the sustenance God sends, the livelihood; its common spelling — r-z-q, razaqa, to provide with the means of subsistence, said of God (Wehr, Lane; al-Tirmidhī 3507): inna llāha huwa r-razzāqu dhū l-quwwati l-matīn, God is the Provider, the Lord of strength, the Firm (Qur’an 51:58). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the rice tab; the case to come
  • maskan · masākinthe dwelling, the home; the dwellings — s-k-n, to dwell (Wehr, Lane): wa-masākina ṭayyibatan fī jannāti ʿadn, and good dwellings in the gardens of Eden (Qur’an 9:72). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the muse and gene tabs; the case to come
  • saqfthe roof, the ceiling — s-q-f (Wehr, Lane): wa-s-saqfi l-marfūʿ, and by the roof raised high (Qur’an 52:5). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the coffee tab; the case to come
  • fāsiqthe transgressor, the one who goes out from obedience — f-s-q, fasaqa (Wehr, Lane): in jāʾakum fāsiqun bi-nabaʾin fa-tabayyanū, if a transgressor brings you news, make sure of it (Qur’an 49:6). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the face tab; the case to come

Hebrew 8

  • śaq שַׂקsack, sackcloth — the hollow sewn round; Genesis 37:34
  • shākhan, Shekhinah, Shekinah שָׁכַןto dwell, to be still; the dwelling presence; its common English spelling — s-k-n by rule
  • zākhar, Zəḵaryāh, Zechariah זָכַרto remember; the name, the Lord has remembered; the English — the cut that stays
  • Yiṣḥāq, Isaac, Isḥāq יִצְחָקhe laughs; the English; the Arabic — the breath cut into pieces in the throat
  • zakhpure — the oil for the lamp, zakh kātīt, pure, beaten (Exodus 27:20): the pure oil is the beaten oil
  • mishkānthe tabernacle, the dwelling — s-k-n by rule
  • Yəḥezqēl יְחֶזְקֵאלEzekiel, God strengthens — ḥ-z-q (Brown, Driver and Briggs). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • Pesachthe Passover, its common spelling — Hebrew pesaḥ, from pāsaḥ, to pass over (Brown, Driver and Briggs). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the face tab; the case to come

Akkadian 1

  • saqqusack

Persian 1

  • shakarsugar — the grit on its way west

Spanish 4

  • azúcarsugar, with the Arabic article — the a and the z of azkā on the page
  • escobabroom
  • izquierdathe left — from Basque ezker (Corominas). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the your and key tabs; the case to come
  • desconectar, desconfiar, descalzoto disconnect; to distrust; barefoot — Spanish des-, Latin dis- (Corominas). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the daisy tab, desconectar and desconfiar on the gene tab, desconfiar on the far tab, descalzo on the lesson tab, and desconectar on the door tab; the case to come

Japanese 13

  • sake 酒rice wine — rice polished until nothing impure remains; kept for the thing in the cup, since the word has no settled etymology
  • sakana 肴 · 魚the food beside the sake; fish
  • izakaya 居酒屋the sake shop
  • sakai 境border — the line cut through the land
  • seki 関barrier — where the road is cut
  • Ōsaka, Osaka 大阪the great slope; the common spelling — ground split, one side lifted; in the Kojiki of 712
  • sakura 桜cherry blossom — the bud cut open; from saku, to bloom, to split
  • shiki 四季the four seasons — the year cut into four
  • shika 鹿deer
  • shiko 四股the sumo stamp — the strike
  • shakai 社会society
  • sakuto split, to tear (裂く); and to bloom (咲く) — the bud cut open from inside; Nihon Kokugo Daijiten
  • sakaa slope, a hill (坂) — ground split, one side lifted; Ōsaka

Yoruba 5

  • sákáto clear, to cut away brush
  • Àṣàkẹ́, Asakeone picked out to be cherished; the singer’s spelling — a, one who; ṣà, to pick out; kẹ́, to cherish: to choose is to cut one from the rest
  • ìṣàkósogovernance — the law cut into the people
  • ṣáto slash with the cutlass (Abraham)
  • ṣà, kẹ́to pick out; to cherish — the pieces of Àṣàkẹ́: to choose is to cut one from the rest

Wolof 1

  • sàkkto make — to carve a form out of formlessness

Akan 4

  • sikagold — what is left in the pan when the gravel has been washed away
  • sakato mix, to stir up (Christaller 1881); in some Akan mouths, to speak — the cut in the air
  • kasato speak; a language (Christaller) — the mirror, K-S: the block of silence broken into words
  • sekana knife, a cutlass (Christaller) — the blade beside the word for speaking

Igbo 1

  • sịkọtato gather in — what the cut leaves, held

Swahili 3

  • shika, shikilia, shikamanato hold, hold fast, cling — the hand as the wall the movement stops at
  • mashakatrouble — the shaking
  • shokathe axe (Johnson)

Somali 1

  • shacabkathe public — the mass that shakes a nation

Zulu 1

  • Shakathe king who cut the long spear short, for use close, as a blade

Kinyarwanda 1

  • gushakato want, to seek — to follow the cut path

Hausa 2

  • zakithe lion — the roar, the cut in the air
  • zakarathe rooster — the crow, the cut in the air

Luganda 1

  • Zikaovergrown — the forest no one has cut back

Quechua 1

  • thupaqroyal, shining — Tupac (the name beside the root)

Nahuatl 1

  • xacallihut — the shack

French 4

  • cassé, casserbroken, to break — sack said backwards, the mirror K-S; Latin quassāre
  • choquerto strike against; shock
  • socthe ploughshare, the blade that cuts the earth; socket — whose oldest sense in the OED is a spearhead
  • secouerto shake — remade from Old French secourre, from Latin succutere, to shake from below (TLFi; de Vaan, under quatiō). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the care tab; the case to come

Italian 1

  • zecca, zecchinothe Venetian mint and its gold coin, from Arabic sikka; the sequin

Pali 1

  • sakkharāsugar — the grit between Sanskrit and Greek

Narragansett 1

  • msíckquatashthe corn boiled whole; succotash, the dish of corn and beans (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come

Hidatsa · Shoshone 1

  • Sacagawea · Sakakawea · Sacajaweathe guide of Lewis and Clark; her name, bird woman or boat launcher (Bright). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the bay and cow tabs, and Sacagawea and Sacajawea on the cage tab; the case to come

Creek 1

  • Taskigithe town, Tuskegee (Bright). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the daisy and cage tabs; the case to come

Arabic · Urdu 6

  • quṣūr, qaṣūr قُصورthe falling short; the fault — q-ṣ-r (Wehr, Lane; Platts). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the soar and jazz tabs; the case to come
  • qisma, kismat قِسمةthe portion; the lot dealt — q-s-m (Wehr, Lane; Platts; OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the mother, Sam and jazz tabs; the case to come
  • nuskhathe copy, the transcript; in Urdu, the physician’s prescription too — n-s-kh, to copy (Wehr, Lane; Platts); the physician’s word. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the nose tab; the case to come
  • sikka · sakka · sikkāthe die a coin is struck with, and the coin; to mint, to coin; the coin, in Urdu — s-k-k (Wehr, Lane; Platts): Episode III reads them, and the S-K register carries them. Set on the shook tab of The Descent
  • sāqīthe cupbearer, the one who pours the drink — s-q-y, saqā, to give to drink (Wehr, Lane; Platts): wa-saqāhum rabbuhum sharāban ṭahūrā, and their Lord gives them a pure drink (Qur’an 76:21). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • shukr · shukarthanks, gratitude; the Urdu, as it is said — sh-k-r, to thank, to be grateful (Wehr, Lane); Urdu shukr, said shukar (Platts): la-in shakartum la-azīdannakum, if you are grateful, I will surely give you more (Qur’an 14:7); Episode III reads shukr as the cut given back, and the S-K register carries it. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the care tab

Urdu · Hindi 2

  • sajānā, sajnā, sajto adorn; to be adorned; adornment — Sanskrit sajj-, to make ready (Platts, Monier-Williams). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • sāgthe greens, the spinach — Sanskrit śāka, a vegetable (Platts, Monier-Williams). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come

English · Persian · Turkish 1

  • shagāl · çakalthe jackal, the Persian word; the Turkish word — Persian shagāl, from Sanskrit sṛgāla; Turkish çakal (OED, Steingass, Monier-Williams). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the call tab; the case to come

English · French · Italian 1

  • risk · risque · risco · rischiothe chance of harm or loss, and to take the chance; the French; the Italian, and its later form — English risk from French risque, from Italian risco, now rischio, whose own origin is uncertain (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the rice tab; the case to come

English · Italian 1

  • Tuscany · Toscanathe region of central Italy, round Florence; its Italian name — the land of the Tusci, the Etruscans, Late Latin Tuscia (OED; Britannica). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the daisy and gene tabs; the case to come

Arabic · English 1

  • sūq · soukthe market; the English, from the Arabic — s-w-q, to drive (Wehr, Lane; OED): mā li-hādhā r-rasūli yaʾkulu ṭ-ṭaʿāma wa-yamshī fī l-aswāq, what is this messenger, who eats food and walks in the markets? (Qur’an 25:7). Set on the shook tab of The Descent; the case to come

Urdu · Arabic 1

  • shikāyat · shikāyathe complaint; the Arabic word — sh-k-w, to complain (Wehr, Lane; Platts): innamā ashkū baththī wa-ḥuznī ilā llāh, I only complain of my anguish and my sorrow to God (Qur’an 12:86): Episode III reads shikāyat as pain cut into words, and the S-K register carries it. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the key tab

Urdu · Persian · English 1

  • shikār · shikarthe hunt, the game hunted; the English of British India — Persian shikār (Steingass, Platts; OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the care tab; the case to come

Arabic · Persian · Urdu 1

  • Iskandar · Sikandar · SikanderAlexander, the king of Macedon, in Arabic and Persian; in Persian and Urdu; its common spelling — the Greek Aléxandros (Steingass, Platts). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the gene, net and door tabs; the case to come

Hebrew · English 2

  • mishkān · Shekhinah · Shekinahthe tabernacle, the dwelling; the dwelling presence of God, in the rabbis’ Hebrew; its English spelling — sh-k-n, shākhan, to settle, to dwell (Brown, Driver and Briggs; OED): Episode III reads them, and the S-K register carries mishkān and Shekhinah. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the gene tab, and mishkān on the muse tab
  • sheqel · shekelthe weight, and the silver of that weight; the English, and the coin of Israel today — sh-q-l, to weigh (Brown, Driver and Briggs; OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the call tab; the case to come

Greek · English 1

  • skhízein · schismto split; the split, the rending of a church — Greek skhízein, and skhísma, through Latin schisma (Beekes, OED); Watkins *skei-, to split: Episode III reads them, and the S-K register carries them. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the kiss tab, and schism on the Sam tab, and skhízein on the sun tab

Turkish · Persian · English 1

  • köşk · kūshk · kioskthe summer house, the pavilion; the palace, the portico; the open booth — French kiosque, from Turkish köşk, from Persian kūshk (OED, Steingass). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the kiss tab; the case to come

Urdu · Persian 3

  • khaskhasthe poppy seed — Persian and Urdu khaskhas (Platts, Steingass). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the kiss tab; the case to come
  • sakht · sakhtīhard, firm, harsh; hardness, severity — Persian sakht (Platts, Steingass). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the God tab; the case to come
  • be-shak · beshakwithout doubt, certainly; the common spelling — Persian be, without, and Arabic shakk, doubt (Platts; Steingass, under bī-shakk); sh-k-k, to doubt (Wehr, Lane). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the best tab; the case to come

English · Quechua 1

  • ayahuasca · ayawaskathe vine of the Amazon, and the drink brewed from it; the Quechua — American Spanish ayahuasca, from Quechua ayawaska: aya, the dead, and waska, the rope, the vine (OED). Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the Ayyūb and best tabs; the case to come

Arabic · English · Spanish 1

  • sukkar · sugar · azúcarsugar; the same, in English; the same, in Spanish, with the Arabic article — Arabic sukkar (Wehr); English sugar, through Old French and medieval Latin from Arabic sukkar, from Persian shakar, from Sanskrit śarkarā (OED); Spanish azúcar, from Arabic as-sukkar (Corominas): Episode III reads all three as the grit that crossed the world, and the S-K register carries them. Set on the shook tab of The Descent, and on the care tab

Checked against Wehr 1994, Lane 1863–93, Watkins 2011, Kroonen 2013, Monier-Williams 1899, Turner 1962–66, Beekes 2010, de Vaan 2008, OED, BDB 1906, NKD 2000–02, Bohas & Saguer 2014, Ibn Jinnī, al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, Christaller 1881, Crowther 1843, Hanks et al. 2016, Ibn al-Anbārī, al-Aḍdād, al-Khalīl, Kitāb al-ʿAyn, Corominas & Pascual 1980–91, Bright 2004, Platts 1884, TLFi

F-T

Episode II · Al-Fattāḥ

The opening

f · p · v + t · d · th

A breath let out through the lips — f, p, b, v — and then the tongue struck against the teeth — t, d, th: the burst, then the strike. F-T is the opening, and the root means what the mouth does. Its faces: the opening itself (fataḥa, pātaḥ, Ephphatha, patēre, the Opener and the key); the parting and the piercing (fataqa, fiti, fight, the rock); the beginning, and the father who opens the line (pater, father, Peter, the Pope); the feeding through the opened mouth (fed, fat, pastor, company); the way through and the foot that strikes it (path, pons, pontifex, feet); the spoken and the trusted (fate, faith). Turned around, T-F, the mouth expels: tafala, to spit.

135 words · 15 languages

Arabic 27

  • fataḥa فَتَحَto open — a door, a book, a hand, a mouth; to conquer, to begin, to reveal (Wehr); the contrary of shutting (Ibn Fāris)
  • al-Fattāḥ الفَتّاحthe Opener, who opens the gates of provision and mercy to His servants and judges between them with the truth, one of the ninety-nine names of God — f-t-ḥ, fataḥa, to open; fattāḥ, the opener, and the judge who decides between two (Wehr, Lane; al-Tirmidhī 3507): thumma yaftaḥu baynanā bi-l-ḥaqqi wa-huwa l-fattāḥu l-ʿalīm, then He will open between us with the truth, and He is the Opener, the All-Knowing (Qur’an 34:26), the one verse that says the name; Episode II is named for it. Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the ḍuḥā tab
  • al-Fātiḥa الفاتِحةthe Opening, the first chapter, said seventeen times a day: the Book opened; Umm al-Qurʾān, the Mother of the Qur’an
  • fatḥ فَتحan opening — and a conquest: Fatḥ Makka, the opening of Mecca; turned around, ḥatf, death
  • miftāḥ مِفتاحthe key: what the Opener gives (Qur’an 6:59), and the one instrument that both opens and locks
  • fatḥa فَتحةthe vowel mark that opens the mouth
  • futūḥ فُتوحthe openings: the conquests of the seventh century, each a city opened
  • fātiḥone who opens, and so a conqueror; the title of Mehmed al-Fātiḥ, who opened Constantinople in 1453 — one word for both
  • iftitāḥ, istiftāḥan inauguration, a building opened; the short prayer before the Fātiḥa — the opening before the Opening
  • yaftaḥu baynanāHe will open between us (Qur’an 34:26): to judge is to lay a shut case open — Lane’s fataḥa baynahum
  • mafātiḥ al-ghaybthe keys of the unseen (Qur’an 6:59): what the Opener holds, and only He
  • Fatḥ Makkathe opening of Mecca, 630: the city taken is the door swung open; Qur’an 48:1, innā fataḥnā, the truce of Ḥudaybiyya called an opening
  • Umm al-Qurʾān, Fātiḥat al-Kitābthe Mother of the Qur’an, the Opening of the Book: the Fātiḥa’s names in al-Bukhārī, read over a scorpion sting in his Book of Medicine
  • fataqato split open, to rip a seam: the heavens and the earth were one sewn-up mass and We split them apart, fataqnāhumā (Qur’an 21:30)
  • fatta, fatatato crumble, to break bread into pieces: the loaf parted; fattūsh, the salad of broken bread
  • fatana, fitnato put gold in the fire to test it (Lane); a trial, a temptation: the seam a trial opens in a soul
  • fatā, fatwāa youth, opening out into his life; the legal opinion that opens a closed question
  • faṭama, Fāṭima, Fatima, Fatimahto wean, to part the child from the breast; the daughter of the Prophet; its common spellings — she who weans, by the grammar; the child weaned, by the tradition — the same strike with the heavy ṭ
  • ḥatfdeath: fatḥ, the opening, turned around (Wehr) — the sixth rule inside one reversal
  • Fatahthe movement that reversed its own initials, ḥ-t-f, so that death would read as opening
  • tafala, taffato spit: F-T reversed, T-F — the teeth shut first and the lips blow out; what the mouth does backwards (Wehr)
  • Buṭrus, BoutrosPeter; the common spelling, as in Boutros Boutros-Ghali — with the p Arabic cannot say become a b: the rock still the rock
  • Fatḥī, Fathi, Fatḥiyya, Fathiya, ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ, Abdel Fattahnames of the opening, each with its common spelling; the servant of the Opener, and its common spelling
  • ʿĪd al-Fiṭr, Eid al-Fitrthe feast of the fast-breaking; its common spelling — fiṭr, the breaking of the fast, f-ṭ-r (Wehr, Lane). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the ten and door tabs; the case to come
  • Fāṭir · fiṭrathe Originator, and the thirty-fifth sūra; the nature one is made with — f-ṭ-r, faṭara, to split, to bring into being, the root of fiṭr (Wehr, Lane): fāṭiri s-samāwāti wa-l-arḍ, Originator of the heavens and the earth (Qur’an 35:1); fiṭrata llāh, the nature God made (Qur’an 30:30). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the door tab; the case to come
  • al-Khāfiḍthe Abaser, who brings low the proud and whatever He wills to bring low, one of the ninety-nine names of God — kh-f-ḍ, khafaḍa, to lower, the opposite of rafaʿa, to raise, whence ar-Rāfiʿ, the Exalter, the name said beside it (Wehr, Lane; al-Tirmidhī 3507); the Qur’an does not use the name, but says of the Event, the Resurrection, khāfiḍatun rāfiʿa, bringing low, raising up (Qur’an 56:3). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the coffee tab; the case to come
  • ʿArafāt · Arafatthe plain east of Mecca where the pilgrims stand; its common spelling — ʿArafāt (Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-Buldān; Wehr): fa-idhā afaḍtum min ʿarafātin fa-dhkurū llāha ʿinda l-mashʿari l-ḥarām, and when you pour down from ʿArafāt, remember God at the Sacred Monument (Qur’an 2:198). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the roof tab; the case to come

Hebrew 10

  • pātaḥ, petaḥ פָּתַחto open; a doorway — Abraham in the petaḥ of his tent; p with a dot in the pe, f without
  • liftōaḥ, tiftaḥto open; open (my lips): the root with the undotted pe, f — Hebrew cannot decide whether it begins with p or f, and is right
  • Adonai sefatai tiftaḥLord, open my lips (Psalm 51:15): the line before the Amidah, three times a day
  • nifteḥūwere opened: the windows of heaven at the flood (Genesis 7:11)
  • pātōaḥ tiftaḥopen, you shall open: the hand opened wide to the poor (Deuteronomy 15:8) — the fist is the shut lips, the palm the burst
  • pōtēaḥ et yādekhaThou openest thine hand (Psalm 145:16): the hand opens and the living are fed
  • maftēaḥkey: Arabic miftāḥ one letter shaded; the key of the house of David laid on a shoulder (Isaiah 22:22)
  • pittūaḥengraving: the second pātaḥ in the lexicon — the engraver opening the stone of the signet (Exodus 28:21)
  • YiftāḥJephthah, the judge: his name is the verb, he opens
  • Petaḥ Tikva, Petah Tikvathe door of hope (Hosea 2:15): a city named for the opening; its common spelling

Latin 18

  • patēreto lie open: the hand laid flat, palm up — patent, the letter laid open; patio
  • pandere, passusto spread; a step — the legs opened: pass, passport, expanse
  • patenta letter laid open for anyone to read — the hand laid flat, palm up
  • patella, patina, panthe kneecap, the little dish; the open dish, and so the pan on the stove (probably, in the American Heritage Dictionary)
  • pass, passportthe legs opened in a step; the paper that opens the port
  • pater, Pater nosterfather: the one who opens the line — P-T-R beside petra; Our Father, the first words of the oldest Christian prayer
  • patricius, Patricka nobleman, one of the fathers of the city — straight back to pater
  • patriarch, patronthe father as founder, wherever the root goes
  • papa, Popethe nursery word, the burst without the strike, carried into Latin as a title: the Father who bears Peter’s keys
  • pōns, pontifexthe bridge, the way opened over the river; the bridge-builder — Pontifex Maximus, the Pope’s Roman title
  • pēs, pedis; pedal, pedestrian, impede, expeditethe foot: the point planted; feet shackled, feet freed
  • pāscere, pastor, pastureto feed a flock; the one who feeds the sheep — the mouth opened and filled
  • pānis, pantry, companybread; the bread room; the people you break bread with — beside Arabic fatta, the crumbled loaf
  • fātum, fārīwhat has been spoken; to speak: the mouth of a god opened, and the word cannot be put back
  • fidēs, fidelity, confide, fiancé, foedus, federaltrust; a door held open toward someone — a secret kept, a betrothal, a treaty
  • infantin-fāns, the one who does not yet speak: the mouth not yet open
  • penna, penthe feather: a pen was a feather; the wing opened (Grimm, beside English feather)
  • pītuīta, pituitaryphlegm, the ooze that named the gland that makes the body grow — beside fat, under Watkins’s root of swelling

Greek 6

  • petannymi, petalon πέταλονto spread out; the leaf spread on its stem — petal, the flower opening
  • petra, Petrosthe rock; Peter, the man handed the keys (Matthew 16:18–19): the struck stone — Beekes gives petra no origin; the reading is the show’s
  • pontosthe sea as the passage between the shores
  • aphasiathe loss of speech: the mouth that cannot open to declare — fate’s family
  • prophetthe one who speaks forth
  • fétathe slice (Italian fetta): the cheese cut in slabs, the piece parted off (Babiniotis)

English 42

  • fathomthe arms held wide: the embrace — the father’s arms opened at the door (Old English fæðm; Watkins, under the root of spreading)
  • fatwhat the opened mouth fills: the body swollen full (Old English fǣtt, fattened)
  • feed, fed, foodto nourish: what comes in through the opened mouth (Old English fēdan) — the hand opens and the living are fed
  • fatewhat has been spoken and cannot be taken back: the mouth of a god opened — Latin fātum
  • faithtrust: the heart opened, the door held ajar toward someone — Latin fidēs
  • fatherthe one who opens the line: pater with the burst become a leak and the strike a breath (Old English fæder; Beowulf 262)
  • Peter, Pedro, Pierre, Pietro, Piotr, Boutrosthe rock, in every tongue Christianity reached; French pierre and Spanish piedra, the stone beside the man
  • fodder, fosterwhat is fed, and the feeding of it (Old English fēdan)
  • fitthe opening met by its match — a key fits a lock (origin unknown; the etymologists offer Old Norse fitja, to knit together, with a question mark)
  • foot, feet, fetterthe point planted, the body’s T; the foot shut (Old English fōt; Beowulf 745, fēt ond folma)
  • fighta burst of breath choked off by the tongue: the tremor let loose (Old English feohtan; Watkins, with a question mark, to pluck, to shear)
  • featherthe wing opened (Grimm, beside Latin penna)
  • path, findthe one line of ground opened through what is shut; to come upon by going
  • fast, fastenfixed in place, and moving; to shut the mouth against food: the root’s opposite, F-S-T
  • fame, fablewhat is spoken of you; what is told — fate’s family
  • bide, abideto stay, to keep faith with: faith’s root by Grimm
  • PatelGujarati paṭel, the village headman: the first man of the village, its father (Hanks, Coates and McClure)
  • fatalityLatin fātālis, from fātum — fate’s own word. Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the loud tab; the case to come
  • fatigueweariness — Latin fatīgāre, to tire out; de Vaan sets it beside fatīscī, to crack open, as one Latin family, and leaves open where that family came from. Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the duck tab; the case to come
  • fada passing craze — origin unknown (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • fadeto lose colour, to wane — Old French fade, insipid; a Latin *fatidus, thought to be fatuus and vapidus blended (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • fatuityfoolishness — Latin fatuus, foolish, insipid; de Vaan ventures, and only ventures, fārī, to speak, through Fatuus, an oracular name of Faunus, come down to mean silly. Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the dot tab; the case to come
  • patthe light blow, and the sound of it — imitative, by 1400 (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • petthe animal kept for company; the darling — Scottish and northern, of unknown origin (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • petrifyto turn to stone — Latin petra, the rock, Greek pétra (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the door, pay and roof tabs; the case to come
  • lift, loftto raise; the upper room, and the air — Old Norse lypta and lopt (OED, Kroonen). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the love tab; the case to come
  • chieftainthe head of a clan — Old French chevetaine, Latin capitāneus, from caput (OED, de Vaan). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the ten and safe tabs; the case to come
  • despot, despitethe master; in scorn of — Greek despótēs; Latin dēspectus (OED, Beekes, de Vaan). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the daisy tab; the case to come
  • pitthe hole in the ground — Old English pytt, Latin puteus, the well (OED, de Vaan). Set on the father tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • aptitudethe fitness — late Latin aptitūdō, from aptus, fitted (OED, de Vaan). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the dot tab; the case to come
  • daffodilthe yellow narcissus of spring — earlier affodill, from medieval Latin affodillus, a form of Latin asphodelus, Greek asphódelos, the asphodel; the d at its head of uncertain origin (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the tell and taffy tabs; the case to come
  • typhoidthe fever like typhus, of the gut — Greek tûphos, smoke, the stupor of fever, and -oid, like (OED, Beekes). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the taffy tab; the case to come
  • depththe distance down — Middle English, from deep, Old English dēop (OED, Kroonen). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the taffy tab; the case to come
  • tepidlukewarm — Latin tepidus, from tepēre, to be warm (OED, de Vaan). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the taffy tab; the case to come
  • daft · deftfoolish, first mild and meek; nimble, skilful — Old English gedæfte, gentle; deft, a later form of the same word (OED): one word to the dictionaries, with two meanings. Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the taffy tab; the case to come
  • orthopaedicfirst the straightening of children, now the surgery of the bones and joints — Greek orthós, straight, and paîs, the child (OED, Beekes). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the earth, duck and taffy tabs; the case to come
  • photothe photograph — short for photograph, from Greek phôs, phōtós, the light, and gráphein, to write (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • feedto give food to — Old English fēdan, from fōda, food (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • feetthe plural of foot — Old English fēt, the plural of fōt (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • hippopotamusthe river horse — Greek hippopótamos, from híppos, the horse, and potamós, the river (OED, Beekes). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the hoof, atom and muse tabs; the case to come
  • riftthe split, the cleft — of Scandinavian origin, as Danish rift (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the roof tab; the case to come
  • pedicurethe care of the feet — French pédicure, from Latin pēs, pedis, the foot, and cūra, care (OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the your, key and duck tabs; the case to come

Sanskrit 4

  • patati, pattrato fly, to fall; the wing and the leaf — what the bird and the tree spread open
  • pitā, pitṛfather; Hindi pitā — the burst and the strike in India
  • pādfoot: the point planted
  • sphuṭto burst open, to blossom, to become clear: the flower opened and the fact made plain

Aramaic 1

  • Ephphatha, etpətaḥbe opened (Mark 7:34): p-t-ḥ in the mouth of Jesus, over a deaf man’s ears; the Ephphetha of the Catholic rite of baptism

Persian 2

  • pidarfather; Urdu pidar
  • pādshāhthe emperor, the great king — Persian pād-shāh, made with shāh, the king (Steingass). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the daisy and shah tabs; the case to come

Hindi/Urdu 3

  • phaṭnāto burst, to tear, to split open
  • phāṭaka gate: the burst-open (Platts; Sanskrit sphāṭa)
  • phiṭ, phiṭkārthe interjection of contempt; a curse: the spit, the opening thrown back out (Platts)

Urdu 1

  • fatehvictory (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan): Arabic fatḥ, which in this root is the opening

Akan 4

  • fito come out of (Christaller 1881)
  • fitito pierce, to bore through; to begin: the first hole made in a thing
  • fitii, afitii, mfitiasethe beginning; the origin; the first word of Genesis in the Asante Twi Bible
  • fata, ɛfatato be fitting; it fits: the opening met by its match, beside English fit

Swahili 2

  • fumbua, fumbato open the eyes, to unfold; to shut them: the burst without the strike — the lips’ half of the root, with the charge reversed inside one word
  • fichua, fichato uncover, to bring a secret into the open; to hide — built the same way, the lips’ half of the root

Spanish 1

  • pan; padre; piedra, Pedrobread, beside pānis and the pantry; father; the stone beside the man

Telugu 1

  • Guḍipāṭi · Gudipatia Telugu family name; its common spelling — the show hears in it Telugu guḍi, the temple (Brown 1903). Set on the father tab of The Descent; the case to come

Greek · English 2

  • asphódelos · asphodelthe asphodel, the flower the poets set in the Elysian meadows; the English — Greek asphódelos, of unknown origin (Beekes, OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the tell and safe tabs; the case to come
  • epitaphthe words written on the tomb — Greek epitáphios, over the tomb, from táphos (Beekes, OED). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the taffy tab; the case to come

Arabic · Urdu 1

  • ifṭār · iftarthe breaking of the fast at sunset; its common spelling — f-ṭ-r, faṭara, to split; afṭara, to break the fast; fiṭr, the breaking of the fast, as in ʿĪd al-Fiṭr (Wehr, Lane; Platts). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the taffy and door tabs; the case to come

Arabic · Swahili 1

  • tafaḍḍal · tafaḍḍalī · tafadhaliplease, be so kind, said to a man; the same, to a woman; please, in Swahili, from the Arabic — f-ḍ-l, faḍl, the favour, the bounty (Wehr, Lane; Johnson). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the taffy and tell tabs; the case to come

Arabic · Persian · Urdu · Greek 1

  • daftar · diphthérāthe register, the book of accounts, and in Persian and Urdu the office; the Greek it comes from, the prepared hide, the parchment (Wehr; Steingass, Platts; OED, Beekes). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the taffy and door tabs; the case to come

English · Persian 1

  • taffeta · tāftathe crisp woven silk; the Persian it comes from, twisted, spun — Persian tāftan, to twist, to spin (OED; Steingass). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the taffy tab; the case to come

Urdu · Hindi 1

  • dupaṭṭā · dupattathe long scarf worn over the head and shoulders; its common spelling — do, two, and paṭ, the breadth of cloth (Platts). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the taffy tab; the case to come

Persian · Urdu 2

  • haft · haftā · haftaseven; the week; its common spelling — Persian haft, seven, hafta, the week (Steingass, Platts). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the hoof tab; the case to come
  • raftan · raftār · rafta raftato go; the gait, the pace; little by little — Persian raftan, to go, raftār (Steingass); Urdu raftār, rafta rafta (Platts). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the roof tab, raftan on the ten tab, and raftār on the door tab; the case to come

English · Spanish 1

  • rapid · rápidoswift; the Spanish — Latin rapidus, from rapere, to seize (OED, de Vaan; Corominas). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the roof tab; the case to come

English · Latin 1

  • Neptune · Neptūnusthe god of the sea, and the eighth planet; the Latin — Neptūnus, of uncertain origin (OED, de Vaan). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the knife and ten tabs, and Neptūnus on the nose tab; the case to come

Urdu · Persian 1

  • koftathe ball of pounded meat — Persian kofta, pounded, of koftan, to beat, to pound (Platts, Steingass). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the coffee tab; the case to come

Latin · English 1

  • caput · capital · captainthe head; the chief, the head city, the stock; the head man — Latin caput, capitis; capital and captain from Latin capitālis and late Latin capitāneus, of caput (OED, de Vaan). Set on the father tab of The Descent, and on the coffee tab, capital on the tell tab, and captain on the ten tab; the case to come

Checked against Wehr 1994, Lane 1863–93, BDB 1906, de Vaan 2008, Beekes 2010, Watkins 2011, OED, Kroonen 2013, Monier-Williams 1899, Turner 1962–66, Christaller 1881, Hanks et al. 2016, Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs, Brown 1903

V-S

Episode IV · A Voice or a Vessel?

The voice and the vessel

v · w + s · ṣ · sh

The lower lip against the teeth, and then the hiss: what carries, and what is carried. Starter list; the episode will fill it.

14 words · 5 languages

Latin 3

  • vōx, vocārevoice; to call — vocal, vocation, invoke, provoke, vouch, vowel
  • vās, vāscellumvessel; the little vessel — vase, vessel, vascular
  • vastusvast; laid waste

Sanskrit 1

  • Vāc वाच्speech; the goddess of speech

Greek 1

  • epos ἔποςthe word — epic

Arabic 6

  • wasiʿa وَسِعَto be wide, to encompass
  • wāsiʿ واسِعwide; al-Wāsiʿ, the All-Embracing
  • wasaṭ وَسَطthe middle
  • wasīla وَسيلةthe means, the vessel of approach
  • waṣala وَصَلَto arrive, to connect
  • waṣiyya وَصِيّةthe bequest, the testament

English 3

  • vesselthe vase, the ship, the blood vessel
  • voicewhat the vessel carries
  • vastwide beyond holding

Checked against Wehr 1994, Lane 1863–93, de Vaan 2008, Monier-Williams 1899, Beekes 2010, OED

W-S

Episode V · Wassap

The whisper

w + s · sh

V with the lips barely touching becomes W; the root softens from the vessel to the whisper. Starter list; the episode will fill it.

11 words · 3 languages

Arabic 3

  • waswasa, al-waswās وَسوَسَ · الوَسواسto whisper; the whisperer — the last chapter of the Qur’an
  • wa-salām وَسَلامand peace — the close of every greeting
  • wasīlathe means

English 7

  • whisperOld English hwisprian
  • wispa thread of smoke or hair
  • waspOld English wæps
  • wasteLatin vastāre, to lay waste
  • washOld English wascan
  • wishOld English wȳscan
  • wassupthe greeting the episode is named for

Latin 1

  • vesperevening

Checked against Wehr 1994, Lane 1863–93, de Vaan 2008, OED

S-L

Episode VI · Salām

Wholeness

s · sh · c + l

The hiss, then the tongue laid flat along the ridge: the smooth, the whole, the settled, the lit. The sel that ends vessel. Starter list; the episode will fill it.

112 words · 18 languages

Arabic 16

  • salām سَلامpeace
  • salima, sālim سَلِمَ · سالِمto be safe, whole; sound
  • Islām, Muslim إسلام · مُسلِمsubmission; the one who submits
  • Sulaymān, Sulaiman, Suleiman سُلَيمانSolomon; the common spellings
  • ṣalāh صَلاةthe prayer, five times a day — ṣ-l-w; Aramaic ṣəlōtā. Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the Allah tab; the case to come
  • salwā سَلْوَىthe quail of the manna (Qur’an 2:57); solace — s-l-w (Wehr, Lane). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • Dār as-Salām دار السلامthe Abode of Peace — dār, the house, and salām, s-l-m (Wehr, Lane); Qur’an 6:127; Dar es Salaam. Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the door and lamb tabs; the case to come
  • zalzala زَلزَلَto quake; zilzāl, the earthquake, and the ninety-ninth sūra — z-l-z-l (Wehr, Lane). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • mā shāʾa llāh ما شاء اللهwhat God has willed — sh-y-ʾ (Wehr, Lane); Qur’an 18:39. Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • sahl · ahlan wa-sahlan سَهلlevel, easy; welcome, you have come to kin and to level ground — s-h-l (Wehr, Lane). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the hello tab; the case to come
  • in shāʾa llāh, inshallah, insha’Allahif God wills; its common spellings — in, if, and shāʾa, He willed, from sh-y-ʾ, to will, with Allāh (Wehr, Lane): udkhulū miṣra in shāʾa llāhu āminīn, enter Egypt, if God wills, in safety (Qur’an 12:99). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the nose tab; the case to come
  • kasal · kusālāthe laziness, the sloth; lazily, the sluggish ones — k-s-l (Wehr, Lane): wa-idhā qāmū ilā ṣ-ṣalāti qāmū kusālā, and when they stand up for prayer they stand up lazily (Qur’an 4:142). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the jazz and kiss tabs; the case to come
  • rasūl · rasul · risālathe messenger, the one sent with a message; its common spelling; the message, the letter — r-s-l, arsala, to send (Wehr, Lane): muḥammadun rasūlu llāh, Muḥammad is the Messenger of God (Qur’an 48:29). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the rice tab; the case to come
  • ṣāliḥ · ṣāliḥāt · ṣulḥ · iṣlāḥrighteous, good, sound; the righteous deeds; the reconciliation, the peace made; the setting right, the reform — ṣ-l-ḥ, to be good, sound, right (Wehr, Lane): illā lladhīna āmanū wa-ʿamilū ṣ-ṣāliḥāt, except those who believe and do righteous deeds (Qur’an 103:3); wa-ṣ-ṣulḥu khayr, and reconciliation is better (4:128); in urīdu illā l-iṣlāḥa mā staṭaʿt, I want only to set things right as far as I am able (11:88). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the Allah tab, and ṣāliḥāt on the head tab; the case to come
  • Ṣāliḥ · Saleh · Salihthe prophet sent to Thamūd; its common spellings — the participle of ṣalaḥa, righteous (Wehr, Lane): wa-ilā Thamūda akhāhum Ṣāliḥan, and to Thamūd their brother Ṣāliḥ (Qur’an 7:73). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the Allah tab; the case to come
  • fayṣal · Fayṣal · Faisal · Feisalthe arbiter, the judge who decides, and the sword that cuts; the name; its common spellings — f-ṣ-l, faṣala, to separate, to decide (Wehr, Lane). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the pay tab; the case to come

Hebrew 5

  • shālōm, shālēm שָׁלוֹםpeace; whole
  • Shəlōmōh, Shlomo שְׁלֹמֹהSolomon; the modern spelling
  • Yerushalayim יְרוּשָׁלַיִםJerusalem — the foundation of Shalem
  • Shāʾūl, Shaul שָׁאוּלSaul; the modern spelling — asked for
  • Yərūshālayim · Yerushalayim · Jerusalemthe city; the same, in its common spelling; the English — Yərūshālayim (Brown, Driver and Briggs). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the your and rice tabs, and Jerusalem on the care and lamb tabs, and Yərūshālayim and Yerushalayim on the lay and yam tabs; the case to come

Latin 23

  • sōlthe sun — solar
  • sōlārīto comfort — solace
  • soliduswhole — solid, solidarity, soldier
  • sēligereto choose — select
  • caelumthe sky — celestial
  • solumthe ground — soil, sole
  • sālsalt — Watkins *sal-; Greek háls; English salt, Old English sealt. Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • salārium, *salāta, salīnussalary, salt money; salad, the salted greens; saline, of salt — the dictionary’s own salt words
  • salīvaspittle — saliva; no sure origin (de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • salīreto leap — salient. Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • caelestisheavenly — Celestine, and the mineral celestine, named for its sky-blue; Céline is Latin Caelīna, from the Roman name Caelius, set beside. Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • syllabusthe list of what is to be taught — a ghost word, from a misreading of Cicero’s sittybas (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • cellaa small room; the cell (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • BasiliaBasel, the city on the Rhine, and the surname taken from it — first in Ammianus Marcellinus, 30.3.1, under the year 374; the city’s name is of unsettled origin; the surname is the habitational name from the city (Hanks, Dictionary of American Family Names). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • sōlitūdō, solidāresolitude, from sōlus, alone; solder and solidarity, from solidus, whole (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • silex, salixflint, the silica; the willow, the salicylic acid (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • salviathe herb sage — from salvus, safe, whole (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • pēnicillusthe little brush; the pencil — from pēnis, the tail (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • cōnsōlārī, cōnsilium, cōnsolidāreto console; the counsel; to consolidate — sōlārī, to soothe; solidus (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the gene and nose tabs; the case to come
  • sōlāciumthe comfort; solace — sōlārī (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the lesson tab; the case to come
  • missilis, missile, missalwhat can be thrown; the thing thrown; the Mass book — mittere, to send; missa (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab, and missilis on the lesson tab; the case to come
  • solūtiō · solutionthe loosening; the answer, the dissolving, the liquid with something dissolved in it — Latin solūtiō, from solvere, to loosen, to untie (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and solution on the ten, lesson and sun tabs, and solūtiō on the loud tab; the case to come
  • solvere · solve · dissolve · absolve · resolveto loosen, to untie; to find the answer, to work out; to melt away, to break up; to set free, to pardon; to decide, to settle, to break into parts — Latin solvere, from *se-luō, sē-, apart, and luere, to loosen (de Vaan, OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the love tab, solvere on the bar tab, dissolve on the daisy tab, and absolve on the best tab, and resolve on the rice tab; the case to come

Greek 7

  • Selḗnē, Selene Σελήνηthe moon, and its goddess; the English
  • salamándra σαλαμάνδραthe salamander — origin unknown; a loan from the east, or Pre-Greek (Beekes). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • syllabḗ συλλαβήthe syllable, what is taken together — syn and lambánein (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and syllable on the ball tab; the case to come
  • Keltoí Κελτοίthe Celts — Herodotus’ name; Latin Celtae; origin unsettled (Beekes). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the call tab, and Celtic on the duck tab; the case to come
  • sélinon σέλινονparsley, celery — through Latin and Italian to French céleri (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • basilikón, basilikḗ βασιλικόν · βασιλικήbasil, the royal herb; the basilica, the king’s hall — basileús, the king (OED, Beekes). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • psaltḗrion ψαλτήριονthe harp; the psalter — psállein, to pluck (OED, Beekes). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the door and run tabs; the case to come

English 44

  • soulOld English sāwol
  • soilthe ground we came from
  • Salemthe town, and the peace in its name
  • silence, stillLatin silēre; Old English stille
  • Selma, Salmā, Salmathe name; the Arabic name; its common spelling — Arabic Salmā, on s-l-m, the root of salām (Wehr, Lane); and Ossian’s Selma, Fingal’s hall, whence Selma, Alabama. Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • ceilingMiddle English celing, from ceil, of uncertain origin (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • sillyfoolish; once, blessed — Old English gesǣlig, from sǣl, happiness (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • salamithe salted sausage — Italian salame, from Latin sāl (OED): the dictionary’s own salt
  • salonthe hall — French, from Italian salone, sala, a Germanic hall (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • salterthe salt-maker — Old English sealtere (OED): the dictionary’s own salt
  • seltzerthe sparkling water — from Selters, in Hesse (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the loud tab; the case to come
  • tonsilthe gland at the throat’s gate — Latin tōnsillae, of no sure origin (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and the physician’s word, on the ten and nose tabs; the case to come
  • seleniumBerzelius’s element of 1818, named for Selḗnē, the moon (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the nay tab; the case to come
  • vesselthe container; the ship — Latin vāscellum, the little vās (OED, de Vaan); Episode IV’s word, whose sel this episode takes up. Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the water tab; the case to come
  • sell, saleto hand over for a price; the handing over — Old English sellan, to give, and late Old English sala, from Old Norse; Germanic *saljan- (Kroonen, OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • sealthe sea animal; the stamp — Old English seolh; Latin sigillum, two words (OED, Kroonen, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • Wesleythe name, from the places called Westley, the west wood (Hanks, Coates and McClure; Mills). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the water tab; the case to come
  • dieselthe engine and its fuel, for Rudolf Diesel; the surname (OED; Hanks). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the daisy tab; the case to come
  • utensilthe tool of the house — Latin ūtēnsilis, from ūtī, to use (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the ten and nose tabs; the case to come
  • silkthe thread of the worm — Latin sēricus, of the Sēres (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • Sally, Sylvester, Silvesterthe pet form of Sarah; the name, of the woods, Latin silvester; its other spelling (Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and Sylvester and Silvester on the love, side and door tabs; the case to come
  • sullyto soil, to stain — French souiller, beside Old English sylian (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • shallthe owing, then the future — Old English sceal (Kroonen, OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • mausoleumthe great tomb, Mausolus’s — Greek Mausōleîon, after Mausolus (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the muse, lamb and lay tabs; the case to come
  • insulinthe hormone of the islets — Latin īnsula, the island (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the nose tab; the case to come
  • special, spatialof a particular kind; of space — Latin speciālis, from speciēs; spatium, the space (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and spatial on the tell tab; the case to come
  • commercialof trade — Latin commercium, com and merx (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the rice and gem tabs; the case to come
  • shelterthe cover, the refuge; to give cover — of uncertain origin; the OED sets it, with a perhaps, beside Middle English sheltron, the wall of locked shields, from Old English scyldtruma, the shield-troop (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the door and loud tabs; the case to come
  • shoulderthe joint of the arm and the body; to bear, to take on — Old English sculdor; West Germanic *skuldrō-, of no sure origin (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the door and loud tabs; the case to come
  • guzzleto drink or eat greedily — perhaps Old French gosiller, from gosier, the throat (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the jazz and kiss tabs; the case to come
  • jostleto push and elbow — joust with -le; Old French juster, from iūxtā, near (OED, de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the jazz tab; the case to come
  • shoal · shoalthe shallow, the sandbank; the crowd of fish — Old English sceald, shallow; Old English scolu, the troop, the multitude, kin to school, of fish (OED): two words the dictionaries keep apart. Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • shouldought to; the past of shall — Old English sceolde, the past of sceal, I owe; Germanic *skulan- (Kroonen, OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the side tab; the case to come
  • shalethe rock that splits into thin leaves — Old English scealu, the shell, the husk, Middle English schale; the rock’s name probably after German Schale, the shell, the thin layer (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • shellthe hard case; the husk; the charge fired from a gun — Old English sciell, scell (OED); Watkins *skel-, to cut: the piece that flakes off, as Episode III reads it. Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • shillingthe old coin of twelve pence, the twentieth of a pound; the coin of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Somalia — Old English scilling; Gothic skilliggs, Old Norse skillingr; a Germanic word of no sure origin (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • shallownot deep — Middle English schalowe, probably akin to shoal, Old English sceald, shallow (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • shieldthe board borne against blows; to guard — Old English scield, sceld; Germanic *skeldu- (Kroonen, OED); Watkins *skel-, to cut. Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the loud tab; the case to come
  • Selena · Selinathe given name; its other spelling — of uncertain origin: perhaps Latin Caelīna, from the Roman family name Caelius, or Greek selḗnē, the moon (Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • ritualthe order of the rite, the t said as ch — Latin rituālis, from rītus, the custom (de Vaan, OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the earth, tell, call and rock tabs; the case to come
  • nasalof the nose — Latin nāsus, nāsālis (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the nose tab; the case to come
  • yourselfyou, and no other — your and self (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the your and rice tabs; the case to come
  • castlethe fortified house of a lord — Latin castellum, the diminutive of castrum, the fort (OED, de Vaan): said without its t. Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the kiss tab; the case to come
  • rehearsalthe practising before the performance — from rehearse, Anglo-Norman reherser, Old French rehercier, to harrow over again (OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the rūḥ, hair and rice tabs; the case to come

Urdu · Persian 1

  • sāl سالthe year (Platts, Steingass) — sāl-girah, the birthday, the knot of the year. Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come

Basque 1

  • Salazarthe old hall — Basque sala, zahar (Hanks, Dictionary of American Family Names). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come

Arabic · Urdu 6

  • afḍal أَفضَلthe most excellent; Urdu afẓal, and the name Afzal — the elative of fāḍil (Wehr, Lane; Platts). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • muṣallā مُصَلًّىthe place of prayer; the prayer rug — ṣ-l-w (Wehr, Lane; Platts): wa-ttakhidhū min maqāmi Ibrāhīma muṣallan, a place of prayer (Qur’an 2:125). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab; the case to come
  • masʾala, masla مسألةthe question put, the problem — s-ʾ-l, to ask (Wehr, Lane; Platts). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab; the case to come
  • ghusl · ghusl-khānathe full washing of the body that makes one pure for prayer; the room for bathing, the bathroom, in Urdu — gh-s-l, to wash (Wehr, Lane): wa-lā junuban illā ʿābirī sabīlin ḥattā taghtasilū, nor in a state of major impurity, unless passing through, until you have washed (Qur’an 4:43); Urdu ghusl and ghusl-khāna, with Persian khāna, the house (Platts). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the jazz and kiss tabs, and ghusl-khāna on the leg and gene tabs; the case to come
  • tafṣīl · tafseelthe detail, the setting out part by part; its common spelling — f-ṣ-l, faṣṣala, to set out in detail (Wehr, Lane; Platts): wa-tafṣīla kulli shayʾin wa-hudan wa-raḥmatan li-qawmin yuʾminūn, and a setting out of all things, and guidance and mercy for a people who believe (Qur’an 12:111). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the taffy and face tabs; the case to come
  • faṣl · faslthe parting, the separation, the decision, the chapter, the season; its common spelling, and in Urdu the season and the harvest — f-ṣ-l, faṣala, to separate (Wehr, Lane; Platts): inna yawma l-faṣli kāna mīqātā, the Day of Decision is an appointed time (Qur’an 78:17). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the face tab; the case to come

Turkish 1

  • Selinthe name — Turkish, set beside Selḗnē, the moon (Beekes). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come

Korean 1

  • Seoulthe capital, the word itself; the city — Korean seoul (Martin, Lee and Chang). Set on the salt tab of The Descent; the case to come

Arabic · English · Urdu 1

  • ghazāl · gazelle · ghazalthe gazelle; the English, through French; the love poem of Arabic, Persian and Urdu, first the talk of love — gh-z-l (Wehr, Lane); gazelle from French, from Arabic ghazāl (OED); Urdu ghazal (Platts). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the jazz and kiss tabs; the case to come

French · Portuguese · German 1

  • Giselle · Gisèle · Gisele · Giselathe name, from French; its French spelling; its Portuguese spelling, as in Brazil; the German form — Germanic gisil, the pledge, perhaps first of a child given as a pledge for an alliance (Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the jazz tab; the case to come

Punjabi 1

  • Jasleena Sikh given name, heard as jas, praise, glory, and līn, absorbed: absorbed in praise — Punjabi jas, from Sanskrit yaśas, fame, glory, and līn, from Sanskrit līna, clinging, absorbed (Punjabi University 1994; Monier-Williams): the name read by its parts, this show’s hearing. Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the jazz tab; the case to come

Italian · Spanish · Portuguese 1

  • Salvatore · Salvadorthe name, the Saviour; its Spanish and Portuguese form — Late Latin Salvātor, the Saviour, from salvāre, to save, and salvus, safe, whole (Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges; Hanks, Dictionary of American Family Names; de Vaan). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the water, door and love tabs; the case to come

Sanskrit · Urdu 1

  • śilājatu · silājīt · shilajitbitumen, the rock-lac; storax, stone-lac, bitumen; the English name of the resin taken as a remedy — Sanskrit śilā, the rock, and jatu, the lac, the gum (Monier-Williams); Urdu silā-jīt, from Sanskrit śilā-jatu and śilā-jit (Platts). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the leg and God tabs; the case to come

Latin · English 1

  • Caelia · Celiathe Roman woman’s name; the English given name — the feminine of Caelius, the Roman family name, perhaps from caelum, the sky (Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and Caelia on the call tab, and Celia on the lay tab; the case to come

Urdu · Hindi 1

  • masālā · masalathe spices, the ingredients ground together; its common spelling — Arabic maṣāliḥ, the things needed, the plural of maṣlaḥa (Platts, OED). Set on the salt tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab; the case to come

Checked against Wehr 1994, Lane 1863–93, BDB 1906, de Vaan 2008, Beekes 2010, OED, Watkins 2011, Platts 1884, Steingass 1892, Hanks et al. 2016, Hanks 2003, Kroonen 2013, Mills 2011, Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006, Martin, Lee & Chang 1967

H-D

Episode VII · Hadid

The edge, and what it hides

h · ḥ + d · ḍ · t · th

A breath from the deepest place in the throat — h, or ḥ squeezed one storey up — and then the tongue stopped at the teeth, the hardest wall in the body: d, t, th, or the curled ḍ of Urdu. H-D is the edge, and what the edge hides, and the root means what the mouth does. Its faces: the limit and the blade (ḥadd, ḥadīd, the smith, taḥdīd); the new, the edge just crossed (ḥadīth, ḥādāsh, Haddish); the guide, the edge kept to (hudā, al-Hādī, the Mahdi); the witness, who stands at it (shahāda); the hidden, what is behind the edge (hide, hut, hat, hood, heed, Hades, the bone that hides the blood); the head, the body’s edge and its chief (head, hēafod, caput); and Manhattan, an island, which is a place made of edge. Two Arabic letters, ḥ and h, and four Semitic roots the dictionaries keep apart; the show holds them to be one breath at two depths, and says so in the open.

100 words · 18 languages

Arabic 38

  • ḥadīd حَديدiron — Hadid: Bella, Gigi and their father Mohamed; Zaha Hadid, who built in steel and glass under the name; and Sūrat al-Ḥadīd, chapter 57, the chapter of Iron (Wehr, Lane)
  • ḥadda حَدَّto sharpen; to delimit, to bound; to define (Wehr) — to restrain, to debar (Lane); Ibn Fāris gives the root two senses only: the holding back, and the extremity of a thing
  • ḥadd · ḥudūd حَدّ · حُدودthe edge, the blade; the border, the limit — and in law the limit and the penalty for crossing it, one word; tilka ḥudūdu llāh, these are the limits of God: do not go near them (Qur’an 2:187)
  • ḥādd حادّsharp, acute: the acute angle, and the acute illness — what a physician in Amman writes where I write acute
  • ḥidda حِدّةsharpness; and a sharp temper
  • taḥdīd تَحديدdelimitation; definition — to define is to set the edge, as Latin dēfīnīre is built on fīnis, the boundary: two languages making define out of edge
  • al-ḥadd al-aqṣā الحَدّ الأقصىthe utmost limit — aqṣā, the furthest, the mosque’s name in Jerusalem
  • ḥaddād حَدّادthe blacksmith, who makes the edge — Haddad, one of the commonest surnames of the Levant
  • ḥattā حَتّىuntil, up to — the T shade of the edge; Spanish hasta (the Academy, Corominas). Up to the limit: that hearing is the show’s
  • ḥadatha حَدَثَto happen, to occur; to be new (Wehr) — Ibn Fāris: a thing coming to be that was not
  • ḥadīth حَديثnew, recent; and speech, a report; and the Tradition, what the Prophet said and did — the word for the oldest tradition is the word for new; the Book calls itself aḥsana l-ḥadīth, the best of discourse (39:23)
  • ḥādith حادِثan event, an accident; in Lahore a crash on the road is a ḥādsa (Platts)
  • ḥadātha حَداثةnewness; and youth — to be young is to be newly across the edge
  • muḥaddith مُحَدِّثthe transmitter of ḥadīth; ḥaddathanā, he told us — the verb that opens chain after chain in al-Bukhārī
  • hadā · hudā هَدى · هُدىto guide, to lead on the right way; guidance, the right path — ihdinā ṣ-ṣirāṭa l-mustaqīm, guide us on the straight path (1:6), said seventeen times a day; hudan lil-muttaqīn (2:2). Hoda Kotb’s first name is this word; her surname, Quṭb, is the pole — a compass, whole, in one name
  • al-Hādī الهاديthe Guide, one of the ninety-nine names — wa-kafā bi-rabbika hādiyan wa-naṣīran, your Lord suffices as guide and helper (25:31); a compass needle is iron, and what turns it is the iron at the centre of the earth
  • Mahdī · Mahdi · Mehdi مَهديthe rightly guided one; its common spelling; Mehdi, in a Persian or an Urdu mouth (Steingass)
  • hidāya هِدايةguidance; Urdu and Persian hidāyat (Platts)
  • hadiyya هَدِيّةthe gift; the Turks took it as hediye
  • shahāda شَهادةthe witnessing; testimony; and the profession of faith itself — ashhadu an lā ilāha illā llāh. The show hears shade and shadow in it, relief in the heat and the facing of one’s own shadow; Watkins files those under *skot-, and the show says so
  • shahīd · shāhid · Shahid شَهيد · شاهِدthe martyr, whose witness was his life; the witness, who was present — shāhid is the one who sees, shahīd the one who is seen
  • ash-Shahīd الشَّهيدthe Witness, one of the ninety-nine names — shahida llāhu annahu lā ilāha illā huwa (3:18); wa-kafā billāhi shahīdan (4:79)
  • shahd شَهدhoney — the same three letters, its own entry in Wehr; set beside the witness
  • al-Wāḥid · wāḥid واحِد · الواحِدthe One, one in His essence, with no like and no equal, not to be divided nor doubled, one of the ninety-nine names of God; one — w-ḥ-d, waḥada, to be alone, unique, without equal (Wehr, Lane; al-Tirmidhī 3507), H-D with a w set in front of it: subḥānahu huwa llāhu l-wāḥidu l-qahhār, glory be to Him: He is God, the One, the Subduer (Qur’an 39:4). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the bahu tab; the case to come
  • al-Aḥad · aḥadthe Sole, who has ever been one and alone, with no second in His lordship, His essence or His attributes, one of the ninety-nine names of God; one — ʾ-ḥ-d, beside wāḥid (Wehr, Lane): qul huwa llāhu aḥad, say: He is God, One (Qur’an 112:1). Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • Uḥud, Uhud أُحُدthe mountain of Medina and its battle, 625; its common spelling (Yāqūt). Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • al-Ḥūthī الحُوثِيّthe Houthi — the nisba of Ḥūth, north of Sanaa (Yāqūt). Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • yahūd يَهُودthe Jews — y-h-d, hāda, to turn back (Wehr, Lane); Hebrew Yəhūdāh, Judah, the praised (Brown, Driver and Briggs). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and Judah on the God tab; the case to come
  • tawḥīd تَوحيدthe oneness of God, and the declaring of it — w-ḥ-d, the root of wāḥid (Wehr, Lane). Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • ḥadath · muḥaddiththe event, the new thing, and the minor impurity that ablution lifts; the scholar who hands on the ḥadīth — ḥ-d-th, to happen, to tell (Wehr, Lane). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the dot tab, and muḥaddith on the mahā tab; the case to come
  • tahdīdthe threat, the menace — h-d-d, to threaten, to pull down (Wehr, Lane). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the dot and ḍuḥā tabs; the case to come
  • ḥadīqathe walled garden — ḥ-d-q (Wehr, Lane). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the duck tab; the case to come
  • ṣāliḥātthe righteous deeds — ṣ-l-ḥ, to be good, sound, right (Wehr, Lane): illā lladhīna āmanū wa-ʿamilū ṣ-ṣāliḥāt, except those who believe and do righteous deeds (Qur’an 103:3). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the Allah and salt tabs; the case to come
  • ilḥād · mulḥidthe turning aside from the faith, unbelief; the one who turns aside, the unbeliever — l-ḥ-d, to deviate, whence laḥd, the niche cut in the side of a grave (Wehr, Lane): wa-li-llāhi l-asmāʾu l-ḥusnā fa-dʿūhu bihā wa-dharū lladhīna yulḥidūna fī asmāʾih, and to God belong the most beautiful names, so call on Him by them, and leave those who deviate concerning His names (Qur’an 7:180). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the Allah tab, and mulḥid on the mill tab; the case to come
  • lahatha · yalhathto pant, the tongue out; it pants — l-h-th (Wehr, Lane): fa-mathaluhū ka-mathali l-kalbi in taḥmil ʿalayhi yalhath aw tatruk-hu yalhath, his likeness is the likeness of the dog: if you charge at it, it pants, and if you leave it, it pants (Qur’an 7:176). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the Allah tab, and yalhath on the yell tab; the case to come
  • zuhd · zāhidthe renunciation of the world, the asceticism; the ascetic, the one who sets little store by a thing — z-h-d (Wehr, Lane): wa-kānū fīhi mina z-zāhidīn, and they set little store by him (Qur’an 12:20). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the shah tab; the case to come
  • mahdthe cradle — m-h-d, to spread, to make smooth (Wehr, Lane): qālū kayfa nukallimu man kāna fī l-mahdi ṣabiyyā, they said: how shall we speak to one who is in the cradle, a child? (Qur’an 19:29). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the mahā tab; the case to come
  • jihād · jihad · juhd · mujāhid · ijtihādthe striving, the struggle in the way of God; its English spelling; the effort; the one who strives; the scholar’s own striving to reach a ruling — j-h-d, to strive, to exert oneself (Wehr, Lane): wa-jāhidū fī llāhi ḥaqqa jihādih, and strive for God as He should be striven for (Qur’an 22:78). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and jihād, jihad, juhd and mujāhid on the koh tab, and mujāhid on the magic tab, and ijtihād on the God and ḍuḥā tabs; the case to come

Hebrew 7

  • ḥad · ḥādad חַד · חָדַדsharp; to be sharp (Brown–Driver–Briggs) — barzel bə-barzel yāḥad, iron sharpeneth iron (Proverbs 27:17): what Hebrew says iron does is the Arabic word for iron
  • ḥīdāh חִידָהthe riddle, the sharp question — the lexicon files it under the neighbour ḥ-w-d; set beside
  • ḥādāsh · ḥōdesh חָדָשׁ · חֹדֶשׁnew; the new moon, and so the month — Arabic th is Hebrew sh by the Semitists’ own law, so ḥ-d-th is ḥ-d-sh: ḥadīth and ḥādāsh are one word by the dictionaries; a new thing, ḥădāshāh (Isaiah 43:19); new every morning, ḥădāshīm (Lamentations 3:23)
  • Rōsh Ḥōdesh רֹאשׁ חֹדֶשׁthe head of the month: the new moon — the head and the new edge in one phrase
  • Hadad · Ben-Hadad הֲדַדthe storm god of the Aramaeans, whose name the kings of Damascus took (1 Kings 15:18, 20:1) — spelt with the open h, h-d-d, the Guide’s letter, and filed by the lexicon as a name; the ear hears the breath and the stop in the thunderclap, and the show says so as its own
  • Hadassah הֲדַסָּהEsther’s Hebrew name (Esther 2:7): the myrtle, h-d-s — H-D with an s hung on the end; it sits beside the root, not in it
  • Yəhūḏīṯthe woman of Judah, the name Judith — Yəhūḏīṯ (Brown, Driver and Briggs; Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the dot tab; the case to come

Akkadian 1

  • edēšu · eššuto be new; new — the oldest Semitic anyone wrote down, the throat letter worn away (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary)

Geʿez 1

  • ḥaddisnew (Leslau); Amharic addis, with the throat letter gone soft — Addis Ababa, the New Flower

Tigrinya 1

  • ḥaddishnew (Kane) — Tiffany Haddish, whose father was Eritrean; by the dictionaries’ own law the same word as ḥadīth: the Tradition and the comedian, one word

Urdu · Hindi 7

  • haḍḍī ہڈیthe bone (Platts) — Turner finds it in Prakrit as haḍḍa and in Sanskrit only in the lexicons, and writes ‘perhaps Dravidian’: the dictionaries give the bone no ancestry to speak of. Blood is made in the marrow: the bone is the hidden factory of the blood, and the show hears the edge and the hidden in it
  • ḥādsa حادثہan accident, an event (Platts) — Arabic ḥādith
  • ḥadd hai · be-ḥadd حد ہے · بے حدthat’s the limit; boundless, without a limit
  • sarḥad سرحدthe frontier: Persian sar, the head, and Arabic ḥadd, the edge (Platts, Steingass) — the head and the limit in one word
  • hidāyat ہدایتguidance (Platts)
  • haṭo · hāth ہٹو · ہاتھmove aside; the hand — hāth lag gaʾī, it came to hand (Platts). Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • bahutmuch, very, many — Hindi bahut, from Sanskrit bahutva, muchness (Platts, Turner). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the bahu tab; the case to come

Sanskrit 3

  • kapālathe skull; and a bowl (Monier-Williams) — Proto-Indo-European *kaput-, the head
  • Siddhārtha · Siddhartha · Siddharth सिद्धार्थhe whose aim is accomplished, the Buddha’s name; its common spelling; the name as India spells it — siddha and artha (Monier-Williams). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the side and door tabs; the case to come
  • lohitared, reddish, and the blood — Sanskrit lohita (Monier-Williams). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the Allah tab; the case to come

Greek 3

  • Hādēs ᾍδηςthe underworld and its lord — the Greeks read it a-ïdēs, the Unseen, and Beekes takes their side; Plato argued the point (Cratylus 403a–404b); Homer’s Aïdēs has no h, the Athenians’ form has it, in front of the d. The gates of Hades, pylai hādou (Matthew 16:18)
  • kytos κύτοςa hollow vessel (Beekes) — cyto-, -cyte, every cell in medicine: the hidden container; Watkins sets it under *(s)keu- with hide
  • hýdra ὕδραthe water-snake — hýdōr, water (Beekes, OED); hydra. Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come

Latin 2

  • cutisthe skin — hide, by Grimm’s rule, and nobody disputes it (de Vaan; Watkins *(s)keu-): the k of the family became the h of English, inside the family
  • caputthe head (de Vaan) — head by three trades, k to h, p to f, t to d; and through French a family of chiefs: cape, capital, captain, chief, chef, chapter, cattle

Old English 3

  • hēafodhead — the Vespasian Psalter gloss, ninth century; the Beowulf manuscript, c. 1000 (OED). Around 1200 the middle fell out: hēafod, heved, hed — what the English mouth kept was the breath and the stop
  • hāda state, a standing — the -hood of childhood and neighbourhood; a different word from the hood you wear, by the OED: two hoods, and the ear hears one H-D
  • hǣþthe heath — Hadley, the heather clearing; Haddon, the heather hill (Hanks); Watkins gives it *kaito-; the show hears the land outside the limit; set beside

English 22

  • headthe top of the body; the front, the source, the chief — hed, c. 1200; the edge (headland, cape), the chief (the head of the table), the direction (a ship’s heading, where it is guided), and the container: the hardest bone in the body is in it, and its flat bones are still making blood
  • hidethe skin; Old English hȳd, Germanic *hūdiz (Kroonen) — Watkins *(s)keu-, to cover, to conceal; the skin is the body’s edge, the one line where you stop and the world starts
  • hide, hiddento conceal; Old English hȳdan — the same entry as the skin (Watkins): the edge and the hidden are one root, and the dictionary says so
  • hoardthe hidden store; Old English hord (Watkins *(s)keu-) — ferritin is the body’s hoard of iron
  • hutthe shelter; French hutte, Old High German hutta, Germanic *hudjōn- (Kroonen)
  • house · skythe shelter (Watkins, with a possibly); Old Norse ský, a cloud — the cover over everything
  • hat · hoodthe covering of the head; Old English hætt, hōd — Watkins *kadh-, to shelter, to cover
  • heedto mind, to keep watch over — Old English hēdan, to guard; Germanic *hōdjan-; German hüten, to guard, and die Hut, the keeping (Duden). By the dictionaries heed is hood’s brother, not head’s; the show hears the head in it — to heed is to keep a thing under the hood of the head
  • heighthow high a thing stands — Old English hīehþu, from hēah, high; the top, as the head is the top of the body. Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the hay tab; the case to come
  • hotof a high heat — Old English hāt; Germanic *haita-. Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • hadthe past of have — Old English hæfde, from habban, to have, to hold. Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • hydrate · hydrantto take in water; the street pipe that gives it — Greek hydōr, water; hydrant an American coinage of the early nineteenth century; the OED’s first evidence is from 1828. Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • aheadin front, onward — on head, Old English on hēafod, at the head of. Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • Hydethe hide of land, the household’s portion (Old English hīgid, from hīwan, the household — not the skin, by the OED); Hyde Park; and Mr Hyde, the hidden half of Dr Jekyll: ‘If he be Mr Hyde, I shall be Mr Seek’
  • huddleto crowd together; Watkins sets it on the page with hide, with a possibly; its bones are H-D-L, and the show says so
  • edge · hedgeOld English ecg, the blade, and hecg, the enclosure — Watkins gives them *ak-, the sharp, and *kagh-, the fence (haw, hawthorn, The Hague); not H-D by the bones, and the show says so; set beside for the thought: the limit and the blade, one idea in both families
  • hardH-R-D — an r in its ribs, a sound made on the ridge between the throat and the teeth; set beside and not built on
  • heart · hubthe pump at the centre — heart is Watkins *kerd-, K-R-D, Latin cor, Greek kardia; hub the OED calls of uncertain origin, perhaps a form of hob. Neither is H-D by the bones; what the show hears is the hub of the blood the bone makes, and nobody else hears it
  • erythrocytethe red cell: the red kytos, the vessel — by the dictionary’s own bones a hide; the iron is hidden in the red cell, the red cell is made in the hidden marrow, and the marrow is hidden in the bone
  • Haddad · Hadley · Haddon · Hayden · Hudson · Heidi · haddockthe names the ear hears in H-D, with the dictionary’s story for each: the smith; the heather clearing; the heather hill; the hay valley; the son of Hudde, a pet name for Hugh (Hanks); a pet form of Adelheid; and haddock, origin unknown (OED)
  • Hadrianof Hadria, the town that shares its name with the Adriatic; beside the root — though a man who built a wall across Britain has earned the seat
  • hateto detest — Old English hatian; Germanic *hatōn- (Kroonen, OED). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the hay tab; the case to come

Munsee 1

  • Manhattanmanaháhtaan — the place where one gathers bows (Goddard 2010); the older gloss on the plaques, the island of many hills; written down first in Juet’s journal of the Half Moon, 1609, as Manna-hata. Man-HAT-tan: the weight falls on hat, and an island is the one kind of place made entirely of edge

Spanish 1

  • hastauntil, up to — Arabic ḥattā (the Academy’s dictionary; Corominas)

Turkish 1

  • hediyethe gift — Arabic hadiyya

Yoruba 1

  • oríthe head (Crowther 1843): the seat of a person’s destiny — orí ẹ pé, your head is complete, is said of someone sound. Not H-D in its sounds; set beside for the sense: the head as the person’s edge and chief, half a world away

Taíno 1

  • Haitithe land of high mountains — hayti (OED, under Haitian). Set on the head tab of The Descent; the case to come

Sanskrit · Hindi 1

  • rohita · Rohitred, reddish; the name, in its common spelling — Sanskrit rohita (Monier-Williams). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the rūḥ tab; the case to come

Urdu 1

  • Haiderthe name, in its common Urdu spelling, said with the ai as a plain vowel — Arabic ḥaydar, the lion, a name of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (Wehr, Lane). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the hay and door tabs; the case to come

Arabic · Urdu 2

  • ṣiḥḥat · sehathealth, in Urdu; its common spelling — ṣ-ḥ-ḥ, to be sound, healthy, correct (Wehr, Lane; Platts). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the shah tab; the case to come
  • waḥda · waḥdatthe oneness, the unity; the same, as Urdu and Persian say it — w-ḥ-d, the root of wāḥid (Wehr, Lane; Platts). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the bahu tab, and waḥdat on the dot tab; the case to come

Persian · Urdu 1

  • bahādurbrave; the hero, and the title — Persian bahādur, a word of Mongol origin (Steingass; Yule and Burnell). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the bahu and door tabs; the case to come

Sanskrit · English 1

  • Mahātmā · mahatmathe great soul, the title given to Gandhi; its English form — Sanskrit mahā-, great, and ātman, the soul, the breath (Monier-Williams; OED). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the atom and mahā tabs; the case to come

Persian 1

  • mahtābthe moonlight — Persian mahtāb, from māh, the moon (Steingass). Set on the head tab of The Descent, and on the mahā and tab tabs; the case to come

Checked against Wehr 1994, Lane 1863–93, Ibn Fāris, Maqāyīs, Ibn al-Anbārī, al-Aḍdād, BDB 1906, CAD, Leslau 1987, Kane 2000, Platts 1884, Steingass 1892, Turner 1962–66, Monier-Williams 1899, Watkins 2011, Kroonen 2013, de Vaan 2008, Beekes 2010, Mallory & Adams 2006, OED, Hanks et al. 2016, Crowther 1843, Corominas & Pascual 1980–91, Goddard 2010, Plato, Cratylus, Pagel et al. 2013, Trombetti 1905, Campbell & Poser 2008, Nichols 1992, Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006, Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-Buldān

S-M

Episode VIII · Uncle Sam: Semitic or Semantics?

The same, the name, the sky

s · sh + m

The hiss, then the lips closed on a hum: the same, the sum, the name, the sky, the one who hears. Semitic is named for Shem, whose name means name; semantics is Greek for the sign. Starter list; the episode will fill it.

63 words · 14 languages

English 16

  • same, someone and the same — Proto-Indo-European *sem-, one
  • similar, simple, single, assemble, seemthe family of *sem-
  • Uncle SamSamuel Wilson of Troy, New York, 1812 — and the initials on the barrels
  • Semiticthe family named for Shem — Schlözer’s coinage, 1781 (OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and Semitic on the duck tab; the case to come
  • bosomthe breast, and what it holds — Old English bōsm (OED, Kroonen). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the best tab; the case to come
  • hazmatthe hazardous material, cut short (OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the mother and host tabs; the case to come
  • Newsomthe surname, from Newsham, the new houses — Old English nīwum hūsum, at the new houses (Hanks, Coates and McClure). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the nose and water tabs; the case to come
  • simulation, sum, summathe likeness made; the total; the whole — simulāre; summa (OED, de Vaan). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and simulation on the ten tab; the case to come
  • Sammy, singlethe pet form of Samuel; one alone — Shəmūʾēl, the name of God, or God has heard; Latin singulus (Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges; OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and single on the sun tab; the case to come
  • mechanismthe working parts, the way a thing works — modern Latin mechanismus, from Greek mēkhanḗ, the contrivance (OED, Beekes); Watkins *magh-, to be able. Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the nose, magic and gene tabs; the case to come
  • symbolthe sign that stands for another thing — Greek sýmbolon, the token, from symbállein, to throw together (Beekes, OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the ball and mob tabs; the case to come
  • botulismthe poisoning by the toxin of Clostridium botulinum, named for the sausage, the physician’s word — German Botulismus, from Latin botulus, the sausage (OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the water, tell and lesson tabs; the case to come
  • racemicmade of the two mirror-image forms of a compound in equal parts, and first said of racemic acid, got from the grape — French racémique, from Latin racēmus, the cluster of grapes (OED, de Vaan). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the rice and magic tabs; the case to come
  • schismthe split, the rending of a church — Greek skhísma, from skhízein, to split, through Latin schisma (Beekes, OED); Watkins *skei-, to split. Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the shook and kiss tabs; the case to come
  • dismayto take away the courage, and the loss of it — Anglo-Norman desmaier, beside Old French esmaier, from a popular Latin *exmagāre, to take away the power, of ex- and the Germanic *magan-, to be able (OED, Watkins). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the may and daisy tabs; the case to come
  • smile · smallto turn up the corners of the mouth; little — Middle English smilen, of Scandinavian origin; Old English smæl, Germanic *smala- (OED, Kroonen). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the mill tab; the case to come

Latin 3

  • summus, summathe highest; the sum — summit
  • sēmi-half; Greek hēmi-; Sanskrit sāmi-
  • mūsēumthe seat of the Muses; museum — Mūsa, Greek Moûsa (OED, Beekes). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab; the case to come

Greek 4

  • sēma, sēmantikos σῆμαthe sign; significant — semantics, semaphore
  • sḗsamon σήσαμονsesame — from the Semitic, beside Akkadian šamaššammū (Beekes, OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • sarkasmós σαρκασμόςthe sneer that tears; sarcasm — sarkázein, to tear flesh, from sárx (Beekes, OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the soar tab; the case to come
  • teinesmós τεινεσμόςthe straining that will not pass; tenesmus — teínein (OED, Beekes). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the ten, nose and muse tabs; the case to come

Sanskrit 2

  • sama समsame, even, level
  • samāja समाजthe assembly — Hindi samāj, society

Hindi · Urdu 2

  • samajh سمجھunderstanding
  • samundar سمندرthe sea — Sanskrit samudra, the gathering of waters (Platts, Monier-Williams). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the door, water, man and net tabs; the case to come

Hindi · Urdu · Persian 1

  • samosathe three-cornered pastry; Persian sanbosag

Arabic 12

  • samāʾ سَماءthe sky, the heights
  • ism اِسمthe name
  • Sumayya, Sumaya سُمَيّةthe exalted one; its common spelling
  • samiʿa, samāʿ سَمِعَ · سَماعto hear; the hearing
  • Ismāʿīl, Ismail إسماعيلIshmael; the common spelling — God hears
  • ash-Shām الشامSyria, the north
  • wisām وِسامthe badge, the decoration; the name Wissam — w-s-m, to mark (Wehr, Lane). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the water tab; the case to come
  • Samīr, Samir, Sumayya, Sumaya سَمير · سُمَيَّةthe companion of the night talk; its common spelling; the first martyr of Islam, Sumayya bint Khayyāṭ; its common spelling — s-m-r (Wehr, Lane); Sumayya, a name the dictionaries do not enter. Set on the Sam tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • as-Samīʿ · samiʿa · Ismāʿīl · Ismail · Ishmaelthe All-Hearing, whose hearing takes in everything, one of the ninety-nine names of God; to hear; the name, God hears; its common spelling; the English — s-m-ʿ, samiʿa, to hear (Wehr, Lane; al-Tirmidhī 3507): innaka anta s-samīʿu l-ʿalīm, You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing (Qur’an 2:127). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and Ismāʿīl, Ismail and Ishmael on the mill tab; the case to come
  • al-ʿAẓīmthe Magnificent, great beyond compare in majesty and might, one of the ninety-nine names of God — ʿ-ẓ-m, to be great, mighty, magnificent (Wehr, Lane; al-Tirmidhī 3507): wa-huwa l-ʿaliyyu l-ʿaẓīm, and He is the Most High, the Magnificent (Qur’an 2:255). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent; the case to come
  • aṣ-Ṣamadthe Eternal Refuge, the Lord to whom all turn in their need, on whom every affair rests and who continues for ever, one of the ninety-nine names of God — ṣ-m-d, ṣamada, to repair to, to turn to; ṣamad, lord, and eternal, everlasting, an epithet of God (Wehr, Lane; al-Tirmidhī 3507): allāhu ṣ-ṣamad, God, the Eternal Refuge (Qur’an 112:2). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the mother tab; the case to come
  • Zamzam · Zam Zamthe well within the Sacred Mosque at Mecca, which by tradition sprang for Hājar and Ismāʿīl; its other spelling — Zamzam (Encyclopaedia of Islam; Wehr); zamzam, abundant water (Lane). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab; the case to come

Hebrew 4

  • shēm, Shem שֵׁםthe name; Noah’s son — the Semites are named for him
  • shāmayim שָׁמַיִםthe sky
  • shāmaʿ, Shemaʿ שָׁמַעto hear; Hear, O Israel
  • Shəmūʾēl, Shimʿōn, ShimshōnSamuel, Simeon, Samson

Akan 1

  • sunsumthe spirit, the soul that shapes a person

Japanese 2

  • samurai 侍the one who served — saburau, to serve (OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the ray tab; the case to come
  • sashimi 刺身the sliced flesh — sashi, to pierce, and mi (OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent; the case to come

Spanish 2

  • desamorthe loss of love — Spanish des- on amor (Corominas). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the daisy tab; the case to come
  • mismo, mismathe same — a Latin *metipsimus (Corominas). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the muse tab; the case to come

Dutch 1

  • Tasmanthe navigator; Tasmania, the island named for him (OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the daisy and man tabs; the case to come

Arabic · Urdu 6

  • jism جِسمthe body — j-s-m (Wehr, Lane; Platts). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the jazz and God tabs; the case to come
  • qasam قَسَمthe oath — q-s-m, to swear (Wehr, Lane; Platts): Qur’an 56:76. Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the shook and jazz tabs; the case to come
  • qisma, kismat قِسمةthe portion; the lot dealt — q-s-m, to divide (Wehr, Lane; Platts; OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the shook, mother and jazz tabs; the case to come
  • nasīm · Naseem · Nasimthe breeze, the breath of air; the name, in its common spellings — n-s-m (Wehr, Lane; Platts), the root of nasama, the breath, the living soul (Wehr, Lane). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the nose tab; the case to come
  • ṣawm · ṣaum · sawmthe fast; the Urdu form; its common spelling — ṣ-w-m, to fast, to abstain (Wehr, Lane; Platts): fa-qūlī innī nadhartu li-r-raḥmāni ṣawman fa-lan ukallima l-yawma insiyyā, then say: I have vowed a fast to the Merciful, and I will not speak to any human being today (Qur’an 19:26). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the beam tab, and ṣawm and sawm on the sieve tab; the case to come
  • mawsim · mausamthe season, the time of the yearly fair and pilgrimage; the season, the weather, as Urdu says it — w-s-m, to mark (Wehr, Lane; Platts). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the mob and muse tabs, and mawsim on the best tab; the case to come

Cantonese 1

  • dim sumthe small dishes of the tea house — Cantonese dím sām, the touch of the heart (OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the atom and muse tabs; the case to come

Persian · Arabic · English · Spanish 1

  • yāsaman · yāsamīn · jasmine · Jasmine · Yasmin · Yasmeen · Jazminthe jasmine, the flower; the same, in Arabic; the English, through French jasmin; the name; the name in its Persian and Arabic form; its common spelling; the Spanish spelling, jazmín, as a name in America — Persian yāsaman, yāsmīn (Steingass); Arabic yāsamīn (Wehr); jasmine (OED); jazmín (Corominas); the names (Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the jazz and man tabs; the case to come

Greek · English 1

  • kósmos · cosmosorder, ornament, the ordered world; the universe — Greek kósmos (Beekes, OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the jazz, muse and kiss tabs; the case to come

Urdu · English 1

  • Kashmīr · Kashmir · cashmerethe valley of the Himalaya; the English; the fine wool of its goats — Urdu and Persian Kashmīr (Platts); cashmere, from Kashmir (OED). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the kiss tab; the case to come

Persian · Urdu 1

  • zamīn · zameenthe earth, the ground, the land; the common spelling — Persian zamīn (Steingass); Urdu zamīn (Platts). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the man tab; the case to come

Urdu · Arabic 1

  • Samīn · Sameenthe given name; its common spelling — read by this show as Arabic thamīn, precious, costly, said samīn in Persian and Urdu (Wehr; Platts), beside Arabic samīn, fat, rich (Wehr, Lane). Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the man tab; the case to come

English · Latin 1

  • seminal · sēmen · semenof the seed, and so the source of what grows from it; the seed; the seed of the body, the physician’s word — Latin sēminālis, from sēmen, sēminis, the seed (OED, de Vaan); Watkins *sē-, to sow. Set on the Sam tab of The Descent, and on the man tab, and seminal on the nail tab; the case to come

Checked against Wehr 1994, Lane 1863–93, BDB 1906, Watkins 2011, de Vaan 2008, Beekes 2010, Monier-Williams 1899, OED, Platts 1884, Corominas & Pascual 1980–91, Kroonen 2013, Hanks et al. 2016, Hanks, Hardcastle & Hodges 2006

References

The works every word is checked against.

The standard dictionaries first; then the scholarship that made the case for one tongue; and the works that argued against it, listed too, because a case that hides its opponents is not a case.

  1. standard referenceWatkins, Calvert. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 3rd ed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.
  2. standard referencede Vaan, Michiel. Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages. Brill, 2008.
  3. standard referenceBeekes, Robert. Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Brill, 2010.
  4. standard referenceKroonen, Guus. Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic. Brill, 2013.
  5. standard referenceMallory, J. P. and D. Q. Adams. The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World. Oxford University Press, 2006.
  6. standard referenceTurner, R. L. A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages. Oxford University Press, 1962–66.
  7. standard referenceOxford English Dictionary, online edition, etymology sections s.vv.
  8. standard referenceWehr, Hans. A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th ed., ed. J. M. Cowan. 1994.
  9. standard referenceHuehnergard, John. “Appendix II: Semitic Roots.” In The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th ed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.
  10. standard referenceMartin, Jack B. and Margaret McKane Mauldin. A Dictionary of Creek/Muskogee. University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
  11. primary scholarshipRead, Allen Walker. “The First Stage in the History of ‘O.K.’” American Speech 38 (1963): 5–27, and the four following articles.
  12. primary scholarshipJakobson, Roman. “Why ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’?” In Perspectives in Psychological Theory, 1960; reprinted in Selected Writings I.
  13. the deep-kinship caseIllich-Svitych, Vladislav M. Opyt sravnenija nostratičeskix jazykov. Moscow: Nauka, 1971–84.
  14. the deep-kinship caseBomhard, Allan R. Reconstructing Proto-Nostratic: Comparative Phonology, Morphology, and Vocabulary. Brill, 2008.
  15. the deep-kinship caseBengtson, John D. and Merritt Ruhlen. “Global Etymologies.” In Ruhlen, On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy. Stanford University Press, 1994.
  16. the objectionCampbell, Lyle and William J. Poser. Language Classification: History and Method. Cambridge University Press, 2008.
  17. standard referenceLane, Edward William. An Arabic-English Lexicon. Williams & Norgate, 1863–93.
  18. standard referenceMonier-Williams, Monier. A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Clarendon Press, 1899.
  19. standard referenceLeslau, Wolf. Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez (Classical Ethiopic). Harrassowitz, 1987.
  20. the deep-kinship caseBancel, Pierre J. and Alain Matthey de l’Etang. “The Age of Mama and Papa.” In John D. Bengtson, ed., In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory. John Benjamins, 2008, 417–38.
  21. standard referenceSteingass, Francis Joseph. A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1892.
  22. standard referencePlatts, John T. A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English. London: W. H. Allen, 1884.
  23. standard referenceBrown, Francis, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Clarendon Press, 1906.
  24. standard referenceGonzález Holguín, Diego. Vocabulario de la lengua general de todo el Perú llamada lengua Qquichua o del Inca. Lima, 1608.
  25. standard referenceNihon Kokugo Daijiten, 2nd ed. Shōgakukan, 2000–02.
  26. standard referenceHanks, Patrick, Richard Coates and Peter McClure. The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland. Oxford University Press, 2016.
  27. the first statement of the questionPlato. Cratylus, trans. H. N. Fowler. Loeb Classical Library 167. Harvard University Press, 1926.
  28. the sound-carries-meaning caseBlasi, Damián E., Søren Wichmann, Harald Hammarström, Peter F. Stadler and Morten H. Christiansen. “Sound–meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages.” PNAS 113 (39), 2016, 10818–23.
  29. the sound-carries-meaning caseKöhler, Wolfgang. Gestalt Psychology. Liveright, 1929.
  30. the sound-carries-meaning caseRamachandran, V. S. and E. M. Hubbard. “Synaesthesia — a window into perception, thought and language.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 8 (12), 2001, 3–34.
  31. the sound-carries-meaning caseOhala, John J. “The frequency code underlies the sound-symbolic use of voice pitch.” In Hinton, Nichols and Ohala, eds., Sound Symbolism. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
  32. the objectionNichols, Johanna. Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
  33. the recordMobb Deep. “Shook Ones, Pt. II.” The Infamous. Loud Records, 1995.
  34. the deep-kinship caseGreenberg, Joseph H. Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, 2 vols. Stanford University Press, 2000–02.
  35. the deep-kinship caseBengtson, John D. and Merritt Ruhlen. “Global Etymologies.” In Ruhlen, On the Origin of Languages. Stanford University Press, 1994.
  36. the deep-kinship caseStarostin, Sergei. The Tower of Babel: An Etymological Database Project. Moscow, 1998–2005.
  37. the deep-kinship caseDolgopolsky, Aharon. Nostratic Dictionary. McDonald Institute, Cambridge, 2008.
  38. the deep-kinship casePedersen, Holger. “Türkische Lautgesetze.” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 57, 1903 — the paper that coined Nostratic.
  39. the deep-kinship caseTrombetti, Alfredo. L’unità d’origine del linguaggio. Bologna, 1905.
  40. the deep-kinship caseLevin, Saul. Semitic and Indo-European: The Principal Etymologies. John Benjamins, 1995.
  41. the sound-carries-meaning caseBohas, Georges and Abderrahim Saguer. The Explanation of Homonymy in the Lexicon of Arabic. ENS Éditions, Lyon, 2014 — the theory of matrices and etymons.
  42. the sound-carries-meaning caseIbn Jinnī, Abū l-Fatḥ ʿUthmān. al-Khaṣāʾiṣ, ed. Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Najjār. Cairo, 1952–56.
  43. the sound-carries-meaning caseIbn Fāris, Aḥmad. Muʿjam Maqāyīs al-Lugha, ed. ʿAbd al-Salām Hārūn. Cairo, 1979.
  44. the sound-carries-meaning caseIbn al-Anbārī, Abū Bakr. Kitāb al-Aḍdād, ed. Muḥammad Abū l-Faḍl Ibrāhīm. Kuwait, 1960.
  45. the sound-carries-meaning caseAbel, Karl. Über den Gegensinn der Urworte. Leipzig, 1884.
  46. the sound-carries-meaning caseFreud, Sigmund. “The Antithetical Meaning of Primal Words.” 1910; Standard Edition vol. 11.
  47. the deep-kinship casePagel, Mark, Quentin D. Atkinson, Andreea S. Calude and Andrew Meade. “Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia.” PNAS 110 (21), 2013, 8471–76.
  48. the deep-kinship caseVajda, Edward. “A Siberian Link with Na-Dene Languages.” In Kari and Potter, eds., The Dene–Yeniseian Connection. Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, 2010.
  49. the deep-kinship caseCavalli-Sforza, L. L., A. Piazza, P. Menozzi and J. Mountain. “Reconstruction of human evolution: bringing together genetic, archaeological, and linguistic data.” PNAS 85, 1988, 6002–06.
  50. primary scholarshipJones, Sir William. “The Third Anniversary Discourse.” Asiatick Society, Calcutta, 2 February 1786.
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  52. the sound-carries-meaning caseal-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī. Kitāb al-ʿAyn, ed. Mahdī al-Makhzūmī and Ibrāhīm al-Sāmarrāʾī. Baghdad, 1980–85.
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  54. standard referenceCrowther, Samuel Ajayi. A Vocabulary of the Yoruba Language. London: Church Missionary Society, 1843.
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  56. standard referenceThe Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. 21 vols. Chicago: Oriental Institute, 1956–2010.
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  63. standard referenceMuslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, ed. Muḥammad Fuʾād ʿAbd al-Bāqī. Cairo, 1955–56. Kitāb al-īmān, ḥadīth 162; Kitāb ṣifat al-qiyāma wa-l-janna wa-n-nār, ḥadīth 2814 and 2815.
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  72. standard referenceTrésor de la langue française informatisé. ATILF, CNRS and Université de Lorraine, 2004.
  73. standard referenceParker, Enid M., and Richard J. Hayward. An Afar–English–French Dictionary (with Grammatical Notes in English). London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1985.
  74. standard referencePukui, Mary Kawena, and Samuel H. Elbert. Hawaiian Dictionary, rev. ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986.
  75. the recordAjram, Nancy. “Ya Tabtab wa Dallaa.” Ya Tabtab wa Dallaa. 2006.
  76. standard referenceMartin, Samuel E., Yang Ha Lee and Sung-Un Chang. A Korean-English Dictionary. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967.
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  78. standard referenceBrown, Charles Philip. A Telugu-English Dictionary, 2nd ed., rev. M. Venkataratnam, W. H. Campbell and K. Veeresalingam. Madras: Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1903.
  79. standard referenceMcGregor, R. S. The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1993.
  80. standard referenceSkolnik, Fred and Michael Berenbaum, eds. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed. Macmillan Reference USA, 2007.
  81. standard referenceRhys Davids, T. W. and William Stede. The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary. Chipstead, Surrey: Pali Text Society, 1921–25.
  82. standard referenceYule, Henry and A. C. Burnell. Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive, new ed., ed. William Crooke. London: John Murray, 1903. S.vv. Anaconda and Delhi.
  83. standard referenceBearman, P., Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs, eds. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed. 12 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1960–2004, s.vv. “ʿAlī al-Riḍā”, “Djabal Ṭāriḳ”, “Ghazna”, “Iḳbāl, Muḥammad”, “Ṭāriḳ b. Ziyād”, “al-Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām”, “Ayyūb”, “Bīmāristān”, “Ḥafṣa”, “Ilyās”, “Ishbīliya”, “Isrāfīl”, “Lāhawr”, “Maryam”, “Mawlā”, “Maymūna bint al-Ḥārith”, “Sabaʾ”, “Shuʿayb”, “Uways al-Ḳaranī” and “Zamzam”.
  84. standard referencePlacenames Database of Ireland (logainm.ie). Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge, Dublin City University, with the Placenames Branch of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
  85. primary scholarshipRett, Andreas. “Über ein eigenartiges hirnatrophisches Syndrom bei Hyperammonämie im Kindesalter.” Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift 116 (1966): 723–26.
  86. standard referenceHanks, Patrick and Simon Lenarčič, with Peter McClure, eds. Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd ed. 5 vols. Oxford University Press, 2022.
  87. standard referenceEncyclopaedia Britannica, online edition, s.vv. Philadelphia; Falsafah; Yoruba; Battle of the Yarmūk; Idrīs; Ural Mountains; Ural River; Bahamas; Bihar; Doha; Jahāngīr; Omar Khayyam; Kyiv; Maya; Miami; Pakistan; Pyongyang; Scheherazade; Shah Jahān; Shāhnāma; Taj Mahal; Tehran; Tuscany; Yalta; and “Why Is Philadelphia Called the City of Brotherly Love?”
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  89. primary sourceMurugadoss, A. R., dir. Ghajini. Tamil film, 2005; remade by him in Hindi as Ghajini, 2008, with Aamir Khan.
  90. primary sourceal-Tirmidhī, Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā. al-Jāmiʿ al-kabīr (Sunan al-Tirmidhī). Kitāb ad-Daʿawāt, ḥadīth 3507 (the ninety-nine names of God, from Abū Hurayra).
  91. standard referenceNişanyan, Sevan. Nişanyan Sözlük: Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojisi. Online edition, nisanyansozluk.com, s.vv. yer, yarın, bayram.
  92. standard referenceReal Academia Española and ASALE. Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online edition (dle.rae.es), s.vv. hierba, yerba, yerno.
  93. standard referencePayne Smith, J. (Mrs. Margoliouth), ed. A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903.
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  95. standard referenceMcCafferty, Michael. Native American Place Names of Indiana. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008.
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  97. primary sourceal-Bukhārī, Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. Kitāb Badʾ al-Waḥy, ḥadīth 1 (actions are by intentions, from ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb).
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  101. standard referenceMacKenzie, D. N. A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.
  102. standard referenceKent, Roland G. Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon, 2nd ed. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1953.
  103. standard referenceCensus of India 2011. Andhra Pradesh: District Census Handbook, Krishna, Part XII-A, Village and Town Directory. Series 29. Directorate of Census Operations, Andhra Pradesh; New Delhi: Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India.

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