| 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: | aiw- |
| DEFINITION: | Also ayu-. Vital force, life, long life, eternity; also “endowed with the acme of vital force, young.” Oldest forms * 2eiw-, *2eyu-, colored to *2aiw-, *2ayu-.
Derivatives include no1, ever, medieval, age, and eon.
1a. no1, from Old English  , ever; b. aught1, from Old English wiht, uht, anything, “ever a creature”; c. ever; every, never, from Old English  fre (second element obscure), ever; d. aye2; nay, from Old Norse ei, ever. a, c, and d all from extended Germanic form *aiwi; b from Germanic *aiwi + *wihti, “ever a thing, anything” (*wihti-, thing; see wekti-). 2a. Suffixed form *aiw-o-. coeval, longevity, medieval, primeval, from Latin aevum, age, eternity; b. further suffixed form *aiwo-t(ti)-. age; coetaneous, from Latin aets (stem aetti-), age; c. further suffixed form *aiwo-t-erno-. eternal, eterne, eternity; sempiternal, from Latin aeternus, eternal. 3. Suffixed form *aiw-en-. eon, from Greek ai n, age, vital force. 4. Zero-grade form *yu- (earlier *yu-) in compound *yu-gwi-es-, “having a vigorous life” (*gwi-es-, life; see gwei-). hygiene, from Greek hugi s, healthy. 5. O-grade form *oyu- (earlier *oyu-). a. utopia, from Greek ou, not, variant of ouk, probably from a pre-Greek phrase *(ne) oyu (kwid), “(not on your) life” (ne, not, and *kwid, indefinite pronoun used as emphasizing particle; see ne and kwo-); b. Ayurveda, from Sanskrit yu , life, health, from suffixed form *oyu-s-. (Pokorny ai - 17.) See also derivative yeu-. |
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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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