Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:41 am
Re: re-
That's a nasty prefix. It is often impossible to guess waht it means, if you encounter a new word using it. In refrigerate and similar, it seems to me that it is just used as some kind of re(!)inforcement. What does it mean in reserve or rebel?
I guess, though, that most cases will induce a meaning of 'again', but we should make a difference beteween re-creation and recreation. This re- is generally thought to relate back to a PIE *re-, from the same stock as our old friend the worm, PIE *wer-, and all notions of turning. Thus, re- is 'turning back'.
'Re(!)versal' would be another shade. Maybe resign belogns here.
Yet other varieties of 'turning back' would be the 'oppose' sets: retaliate, resist, and repugnant if taken as 'fight against' (cf. pugilist etc.)
For a specialist in semantics, it would probably be possible to find 20 more shades of emaning, but I'm not out to score in that department.
That's a nasty prefix. It is often impossible to guess waht it means, if you encounter a new word using it. In refrigerate and similar, it seems to me that it is just used as some kind of re(!)inforcement. What does it mean in reserve or rebel?
I guess, though, that most cases will induce a meaning of 'again', but we should make a difference beteween re-creation and recreation. This re- is generally thought to relate back to a PIE *re-, from the same stock as our old friend the worm, PIE *wer-, and all notions of turning. Thus, re- is 'turning back'.
'Re(!)versal' would be another shade. Maybe resign belogns here.
Yet other varieties of 'turning back' would be the 'oppose' sets: retaliate, resist, and repugnant if taken as 'fight against' (cf. pugilist etc.)
For a specialist in semantics, it would probably be possible to find 20 more shades of emaning, but I'm not out to score in that department.
