Here in Massachusetts the leaves are starting to turn amazing colors… Our second spring, my favorite season.

Tree is from Proto Indo European deru or doru, which meant “oak tree”. The oak tree was so central and sacred to the ancient Indo Europeans that in many of the daughter languages, including English, the word for “oak” was simply extended to mean all trees everywhere. It’s also the root of true, truce, betroth, truth, trust, dryad, rhododendron, and of course druid. The oak tree itself may have been too holy to have its name spoken; in any case, its name oak has an unknown origin — see oak.

Meanwhile, deru/doru became trewan in Proto Indo European, and treo in Old English; it was simplified to tree in Modern English.

The word tree seems to be concerned with growth and endurance: powerful energy moving along a path, with stamina and determination.

Thanks to Nio for suggesting this word of the day!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 11:05 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.