| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
| |
Appendix I
Indo-European Roots |
| |
| ENTRY: | (s)pen- |
| DEFINITION: | To draw, stretch, spin.
Derivatives include spider, pansy, pendant1, appendix, penthouse, and spontaneous.
I. Basic form *spen-. 1. Suffixed form *spen-wo-. a. spider, spin, from Old English spinnan, to spin, and sp thra, spider, contracted from Germanic derivative *spin-thr n-, “the spinner”; b. spindle, from Old English spinel, spindle, from Germanic derivative *spin-iln-. Both a and b from Germanic *spinnan, to spin. 2. Extended form *pend-. painter2, pansy, penchant, pendant1, pendentive, pendulous, pendulum, pensile, pension1, pensive, peso, poise1; antependium, append, appendix, avoirdupois, compendium, compensate, counterpoise, depend, dispense, expend, impend, penthouse, perpend, perpendicular, prepense, propend, recompense, stipend, suspend, vilipend, from Latin pend re, to hang (intransitive), and pendere, to cause to hang, weigh, with its frequentative pns re, to weigh, consider. 3. Perhaps suffixed form *pen-y-. –penia, from Greek peni, lack, poverty (< “a strain, exhaustion”). 4. geoponic, lithopone, from Greek ponos, toil, and ponein, to toil, o-grade derivatives of penesthai, to toil.
II. O-grade forms *spon-, *pon-. 1a. span2, spancel, from Middle Dutch spannen, to bind; b. spanner, from Old High German spannan, to stretch. Both a and b from Germanic *spannan. 2. span1, from Old English span(n), distance, from Germanic *spanno-. 3. Perhaps Germanic *spang. spangle, from Middle Dutch spange, clasp. 4. Suffixed and extended form *pond-o-. pound1, from Latin pond, by weight. 5. Suffixed and extended form *pond-es-. ponder, ponderous; equiponderate, preponderate, from Latin pondus (stem ponder-), weight, and its denominative ponderre, to weigh, ponder. 6. Suffixed o-grade form *spon-t-. spontaneous, from Latin sponte, of one's own accord, spontaneously (but this is more likely related to the Germanic verb *spanan, to entice, from a homophonous root). (Pokorny (s)pen-(d-) 988.) |
| |
| |
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
