| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
| |
Appendix I
Indo-European Roots |
| |
| ENTRY: | plek- |
| DEFINITION: | To plait. Extension of pel-2. Oldest form *ple -, becoming *plek- in centum languages.
Derivatives include flax, pliant, and perplex.
1. Suffixed o-grade form *plok-so-. flax, from Old English fleax, flax, from Germanic *flahsam, flax. 2. Full-grade form *plek-. multiplex, from Latin -plex, -fold (in compounds such as duplex, twofold; see dwo-). 3. plait, pleat, pliant, plica, plicate, plight1, plissé, ply1; apply, complicate, complice, deploy, display, employ, explicate, explicit, exploit, implicate, implicit, replicate, reply, splay, from Latin plic re, to fold (also in compounds used as denominatives of words in -plex, genitive -plicis). 4. Suffixed forms *plek-to- and *plek-t-to-. pleach, plexus; amplexicaul, amplexus, complect, complex, perplexed, from Latin plectere (past participle plexus), to weave, plait, entwine. 5. plecopteran, plectognath, from Greek plekein, to plait, twine, and plektos, twisted. (Pokorny ple- 834.) |
| |
| |
| 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. |
|
|
