| 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: | dek |
| DEFINITION: | Ten. Oldest form *de , becoming *dek in centum languages. Derivatives include ten, December, decimate, dean, hundred, century, and hecatomb. I. Basic form *dek . 1a. ten, from Old English t en, ten; b. Old Norse tjan, ten, in compound ttj n (see okt (u)). Both a and b from Germanic *tehun. 2. eighteen, fifteen, fourteen, nineteen, seventeen, sixteen, thirteen, from Old English suffix -t ne, -t ne, -t ne, ten, -teen, from Germanic *tehan. 3. deci-, decimal, decimate, decuple, decurion, dicker, dime; December, decemvir, decennary, decennium, decussate, dozen, duodecimal, octodecimo, sextodecimo, from Latin decem, ten. 4. denarius, denary, denier2, dinar, from irregular Latin distributive d n , by tens, ten each (formed by analogy with n n , nine each). 5. dean, deca-, decade, doyen; decagon, Decalogue, dodecagon, from Greek deka, ten. II. Germanic *tigu-, ten, decad (of uncertain formation, as though < *deku-), in compound *tw gentig (see dwo-). III. Ordinal number *dek to-. tenth, tithe, from Old English teogotha, t otha, tenth, from Germanic *teguntha-. IV. Suffixed zero-grade form *-dk -t , reduced to *-k t , and lengthened o-grade form *-dk m-t , reduced to *-kont . 1. nonagenarian, octogenarian, Septuagint, sexagenary, from Latin -gint , ten times. 2. Pentecost, from Greek *-konta, ten times. V. Suffixed zero-grade form *dk -tom, hundred, reduced to *k tom. 1. hundred, from Old English hundred, from dialectal North and West Germanic *hund(a)-rada- (-rada-, from Germanic *radam, number; see ar-), from Germanic *hundam, hundred. 2. Germanic compound *th s-hundi, swollen hundred, thousand (see teu -). 3. cent, cental, centas, centavo, centenarian, centenary, centesimal, centi-, centime, centner, centum, century, qindarka; centennial, cinquecento, percent, quattrocento, seicento, sen2, seniti, sexcentenary, trecento, from Latin centum, hundred. 4. hecatomb, hecto-, from Greek hekaton, a hundred (? dissimilated from *hem-katon, one hundred; *hem-, one; see sem-1). 5. stotinka, from Old Church Slavonic s to, hundred. 6. satem, from Avestan sat m, hundred. (Pokorny de 191.) See also compound root w k t . |
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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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