gʷei- / Indo-European roots

gwei-

To live.

Also gweiə- (oldest form *gweih3-, with metathesized variant *gwyeh3-, colored to *gwyoh3-, becoming *gwyō-).

▲ Derivatives include quick, vivid, vitamin, whiskey, amphibious, microbe, hygiene.

I. Suffixed zero-grade form *gwi-wo-, *gwī-wo- (< *gwiə-wo-), living.
1. a. quick, quicksilver from Old English cwic, cwicu, living, alive; b. couch grass, quitch grass from Old English cwice, couch grass (so named from its rapid growth). Both a and b from Germanic *kwi(k)waz.
2. a. (i) sempervivum, vivify, viviparous from Latin vīvus, living, alive; (ii) viper, weever, wyvern from Latin vīpera, viper, contracted from *vīvipera, "bearing live young" (from the belief that it hatches its eggs inside its body), from feminine of earlier *vīvo-paros (-paros, bearing; see perə-1); b. viand, victual, viva, vivacious, vivid; convivial, revive, survive from Latin denominative vīvere, to live.
3. azoth from Middle Persian *zhīwak, alive, from Old Persian *jīvaka-, extension of jīva-.
4. Further suffixed form *gwī-wo-tā-. viable, vital; vitamin from Latin vīta, life.
5. Further suffixed form *gwi-wo-tūt-. usquebaugh, whiskey from Old Irish bethu, life.
II. Suffixed zero-grade form *gwiə-o-. bio-, biota, biotic; aerobe, amphibian, anabiosis, cenobite, dendrobium, microbe, rhizobium, saprobe, symbiosis from Greek bios, life (> biotē, way of life).
III. Variant form *gwyō- (< *gwyoə-).
1. azo-; diazo, hylozoism from Greek zōē, zoē, life
2. Suffixed form *gwyō-yo-. zodiac, -zoic, zoo-, zoon1, -zoon from Greek zōon, zōion, living being, animal.
IV. Compound suffixed form *yu-gwiə-es- (see aiw-)
V. Possibly Old English cwifer-, nimble quiver1

[Pokorny 3. g̒ͧei̯- 467.]


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