gʷei-

To live. Also gʷeiə- (oldest form *gʷeiə₃-, with metathesized variant *gʷyeə₃-, colored to *gʷyoə₃-, contracted to *gʷyō-).

Derivatives include quick, vivid, vitamin, whiskey, amphibious, microbe, and hygiene.

I. Suffixed zero-grade form *gʷi-wo-, *gʷī-wo- (< *gʷiə-wo-), living.

1.

a. quick, quicksilver, from Old English cwic, cwicu, living, alive;

b. couch grass, quitch grass, from Old English cwice, couch grass (so named from its rapid growth). Both a and b from Germanic *kwi(k)waz.

2.

a.

(i) vivify, viviparous, from Latin vīvus, living, alive;

(ii) viper, weever, wyvern, from Latin vīpera, viper, contracted from *vīvipera, “bearing live young” (from the belief that it hatches its eggs inside its body), from feminine of earlier *vīvo-paros (-paros, bearing; see perə-¹);

b. viand, victual, viva, vivacious, vivid; convivial, revive, survive, from Latin denominative vīvere, to live.

3. azoth, from Middle Persian *zhīwak, alive, from Old Persian *jīvaka-, extension of jīva-.

4. Further suffixed form *gʷī-wo-tā-. viable, vital; vitamin, from Latin vīta, life.

5. Further suffixed form *gʷi-wo-tūt-. usquebaugh, whiskey, from Old Irish bethu, life.

II. Suffixed zero-grade form *gʷiə-o-. bio-, biota, biotic; aerobe, amphibian, anabiosis, cenobite, dendrobium, microbe, rhizobium, saprobe, symbiosis, from Greek bios, life (> biotē, way of life).

III. Variant form *gʷyō- (< *gʷyoə-).

1. azo-; diazo, hylozoism, from Greek zoē, life.

2. Suffixed form *gʷyō-yo-. zodiac, -zoic, zoo-, zoon¹, -zoon, from Greek zōon, zōion, living being, animal.

IV. Compound suffixed form *yu-gʷiə-es- (see aiw-).

V. Possibly Old English cwifer-, nimble: quiver¹.

 

[Pokorny 3. gᵘ̯ei̯- 467.]

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