| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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Appendix I
Indo-European Roots |
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| ENTRY: | leu- |
| DEFINITION: | To loosen, divide, cut apart.
Derivatives include forlorn, analysis, and solve.
I. Extended Germanic root *leus-. 1a. lorn, losel, from Old English -l osan, to lose; b. (i) forlorn, from Old English forlosan, to forfeit, lose; (ii) forlorn hope, from Dutch verliezen (past participle verloren), to lose. Both (i) and (ii) from Germanic *fer-leusan, *far-leusan (*fer-, *far-, prefix denoting rejection or exclusion; see per1). Both a and b from Germanic *leusan, with Old English and Dutch past participle loren from Germanic *luzana-, from Indo-European suffixed zero-grade form *lus-ono-. 2a. leasing, –less, from Old English las, “loose,” free from, without, untrue, lacking; b. lose, loss, from Old English los, loss; c. loose, from Old Norse lauss, louss, loose; d. loess, from German dialectal lösch, loose. a–d all from Germanic *lausaz. 3. leister, from Old Norse lj sta, to strike, perhaps from Germanic *leustan.
II. Basic form *leu-. 1. lag2, probably from a source akin to Swedish lagg, barrel stave (< “split piece of wood”), from Germanic *laww. 2. Zero-grade form *lu-. a. lyo-, lysis, lyso-, –lyte, lytic, –lytic; analysis, catalysis, dialysis, lyase, palsy, paralysis, tachylyte, from Greek l ein, to loosen, release, untie; b. lues, from Latin lus, plague, pestilence (< “dissolution, putrefaction”); c. prefixed form *se-lu- (se-, apart; see s(w)e-). soluble, solute, solve; absolute, absolve, assoil, dissolve, resolute, resolve, from Latin solvere, to loosen, untie. (Pokorny 2. leu- 681.) |
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| 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. |
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