In the shower this morning I wondered about "set". It has a buzillion meanings, and I wanted to know if all of these senses can be traced to a common ancestor, or if many different root words have been normalised to give us just one.
Off I want to the Online Etymology Dictionary again.
This time the entry was a bit thinner. It lists set as a verb, an adjective, and a noun.
set as a verb
Means "cause to sit, put in some place, fix firmly"
From Old English settan, with the same meaning
set as a adjective
Means "fixed"
From Middle English sett, "set".
set as a noun
Means "collection of things", with a lot of different senses within this meaning
From Old French sette "sequence", which was from Latin secta "a following". It's related to our sect.
So it looks like set really did come from more than one root. However, there are only three roots, and waaay more senses than that. I'll have to look in my OED tonight, but I think there are sixty or something.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment