Spirit is from Proto Indo European peis or speis, meaning “to blow”. Interestingly, PIE had three other words homophonous with peis, one meaning “to crush”, another meaning “fish”, and a third meaning “weight”; whether these roots were related to “to blow” is unknown. In any case, it descended into Latin as the verb spirare, “to breathe”, which gave us transpire, expire, aspire, conspire, inspire, and others.

In Classical (pre-imperial or pagan) Latin, the usual word for “soul” or “spirit” was animus (or female anima); but as Christianity spread during the imperial period, the word spiritus became more common because it appeared in the Latin Bible as the translation of the Greek pneuma, “breath, spirit”, which in turn was a translation of the Hebrew ruah, “breath, spirit”. Thus a Hebrew metaphor equating breath and spirit was carried forward in the Greek and Latin translations. English Bibles, however, did not translate spiritus as breath — they simply borrowed spiritus as spirit (or, occasionally, used the word ghost, which did not preserve the metaphor).

Spirit begins with strong energy emerging from a point, moving a long distance down a path with stamina and great force. The meaning here is clearest if it’s kept in mind that the primary syllable of spirit is identical with that of spear. Spirit’s second syllable, however, extends the meaning by indicating that the result of the forceful, directed energy is a light upward movement along an open path. Together, the sounds of spirit indicate the tremendous force that Spirit can exert on our lives, as well as the gentler light, upward motion it engenders in quieter moments; but in either case the energy and the movement are directed, moving us forward inexorably.

Thanks to Jessa for suggesting this word of the day.

From the Proto Indo European verb pag, “fasten”, which is also the ancestor of peace, pact, newfangled, pole, peasant, propogate, and travel. In Latin pag became pangere, “to affix or fasten”. In classical times the smallest administrative unit of the Roman Empire was a pagus, so called because it was delimited (”fixed”) by markers (compare Tolkien’s nickname for Rohan, one of the few countries in Middle Earth with fixed borders: “The Mark”). Naturally enough, someone who was from one of these districts (usually far away from the cities) was called a paganus.

At this point the usual story is that as Christianity took over the towns and cities of Rome, the rural areas held fast to the old ways; and thus the word paganus became applied (derogatorily) to non-Christians — equivalent to calling them hillbillies. An alternative theory is that it’s derived from Roman military slang for “civilian, incompetent soldier”, which early Christians picked up alongside the military imagery of the church at that time (i.e. if a Christian was a soldier of Christ, then a non-Christian was a paganus). In either case, the word was borrowed into English in the late 1300’s in its religious sense.

The modern word Pagan has the same phonosemantics as the ancient Proto Indo European root pag – a place, a location that is flexible or spread wide (like open countryside) but is grounded (”fixed”) into the Source.

Present has four main senses –

• As a noun, it can mean:
  • “a gift”, or
  • “this point in time”.
• As an adjective, it means “currently existing” or “nearby”.
• As a verb, it is a causative version of the first meaning of the noun, i.e. “to make a gift of”, or “to make present”.

But all these senses go back to a single Latin root, the verb praeesse (pronounced pry-ESS-eh), meaning “to place before; to put at hand”. This in turn is a combination of the prefix prae- (which is the same as English pre-, as in prepare, preview, prequel, etc.) plus the verb esse, “to be”. The core meaning is a referent to what is in front of you, what is given to you.

Prae- goes back to Proto Indo European prai, “beyond”, and is related to English for, before, and of. Esse is derived from Proto Indo European esti, a form of “be”, and is related to English is.

Notably, the noun and adjective forms have the first syllable stressed, and the verb form has the second syllable stressed. Why this should be is a mystery; the implications for the phonosemantics provides a clue.

In both forms, a given point / location is brought to the fore with an infusion of energy, and carried forward with strength along a path which narrows toward a goal. In the “gift” and “present moment” and “existing here” meanings, where the focus is on what is at hand, the primary stress falls on the point source and its launch along the path. In the verbal “cause to be here” meaning, the primary stress is on the path and the narrowing towards a goal.

Thanks to Ali for suggesting this word of the day…