Fire
A word native to English, derived from Old English fyr, in turn from Proto-Germanic fuir, which descended from Proto-Indo-European paewr, and is related to Greek pyr, the source of our words pyre and pyrite.
Proto-Indo-European apparantly had two main words for fire: paewr and egni (source of Latin igni, and English ignite, igneus, etc.). Paewr referred to fire as a substance, an inanimate thing; but egni referred to fire as an animate, living thing. (Water also had two analogous forms in PIE.) This distinction was lost in all the daughter languages.
Phonosemantically, fire is a process that is expansive, and oriented toward mind and art (long “i”). It begins freely, spontaneously (”f”), and results in the strong energy of “r”. The reading “mind and art” is interesting, and appropriate considering the association of fire with inspiration. (Note the primary syllable of inspire – like fire, but its source is a simple point location.) In this connection, the “discharge” meaning of fire — whether firing a weapon or firing an employee or firing off an email — signifies a spontaneous, almost random energy release.
The greatest of the old Celtic fire festivals, Beltane, occurs in the middle of spring; and in that holiday, the energy of fire is associated with springtime’s great blossoming, and the invigoration that appears in all things Earthly — the weather, the sea, the plants, the animals, and humanity.
May 8th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
I think the phonosemantics of a related word, Burn, is very interesting…
It has the B of explosiveness and violence and the R of energy without a direction… yet it also has the short U, which is described as having plenty of room inside, and the N shows continuous progression…
It definitely describes burning, with its violence and unpredictability, yet is also, very clearly, describes the long consumption of its fuel as well…
May 8th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Absolutely! And similar (but etymologically unrelated) to burn we have brand, with many of the same properties. When I was looking up burn I saw that it derives from the same root as bourne, an old, old word for a fountain or a spring, still found in many place names. Notice how burn and bourne have opposite-sounding meanings at first glance, but they both refer to what you said: explosive violence, undirected energy, extended indefinitely.