| 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: | p - |
| DEFINITION: | To rot, decay. Probably contracted from *pu - (becoming *puw- before vowels).
Derivatives include foul, fuzzy, potpourri, and pus.
1. Suffixed form *p -lo-. a. foul, from Old English fl, unclean, rotten; b. fulmar, from Old Norse fll, foul; c. filth, from Old English f lth, foulness, from Germanic abstract noun *flith ; d. file3, foil1; defile1, from Old English flan, to sully, from Germanic denominative *fljan, to soil, dirty. a–d all from Germanic *flaz, rotten, filthy. 2. Extended form *pug-. fog2, from Middle English fog, fogge, aftermath grass, from a Scandinavian source probably akin to Icelandic fki, rotten sea grass, and Norwegian fogg, rank grass, from Germanic *fuk-. 3. Extended variant form *pous-. fuzzy, from Low German fussig, spongy, from Germanic *fausa-. 4. Suffixed form *pu-tri-. putrescent, putrid; olla podrida, potpourri, putrefy, from Latin puter (stem putri-), rotten. 5. Suffixed form *puw-os-. a. purulent, pus; suppurate, from Latin ps, pus; b. pyo-, from Greek puon, puos, pus. 6. empyema, from Greek compound empuein, to suppurate (en-, in; see en). (Pokorny 2. p- 848.) |
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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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