krei-

To sieve, discriminate, distinguish.

Derivatives include garble, crime, certain, excrement, crisis, and hypocrisy.

1. Basic form with variant instrumental suffixes.

a. Suffixed form *krei-tro-. riddle¹, from Old English hridder, hriddel, sieve, from Germanic *hridra-;

b. suffixed form *krei-dhro-. cribriform, garble, from Latin crībrum, sieve.

2. Suffixed form *krei-men-.

a. crime, criminal; recriminate, from Latin crīmen, judgment, crime;

b. discriminate, from Latin discrīmen, distinction (dis-, apart).

3. Suffixed zero-grade form *kri-no-. certain; ascertain, concern, concert, decree, discern, disconcert, excrement, excrete, incertitude, recrement, secern, secret, secretary, from Latin cernere (past participle crētus), to sift, separate, decide.

4. Suffixed zero-grade form *kri-n-yo-. crisis, critic, criterion; apocrine, diacritic, eccrine, endocrine, epicritic, exocrine, hematocrit, hypocrisy, from Greek krīnein, to separate, decide, judge, and krīnesthai, to explain.

 

[Pokorny 4. sker-, Section II. 945.]

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