✣ Word Garden

Proto-Indo-European · 19 October 2026

A word a day week

*néwos

approximately ‘new-os’ · reconstructed adjective

  • new

New, novel, innovation, neo-, and Sanskrit náva share an old adjective that has spent millennia announcing fresh things.

Then → now

The family reunion

*néwos → Proto-Germanic *newjaz → Old English nīwe → English new; *néwos → Latin novus → Old French novel → English novel; *néwos → Latin innovāre → English innovate; *néwos → Ancient Greek néos → English neo-
Selected routes, not an exhaustive family tree. Intermediate forms are simplified for a readable first look.
  • GermanicEnglish newnew
  • ItalicEnglish novelnew; new kind of story
  • ItalicEnglish innovatemake new
  • GreekEnglish neo-new; revived

Tiny sentence

*h₁éḱwos néwos h₁ésti.

horse.NOM new.NOM be.PRS.3SG

“The horse is new.”

A playful teaching reconstruction. Predicate adjective syntax and word order are simplified for a first encounter.

Receipts

Sources and cautions

Some English examples are inherited, while others are later learned or Romance loans. Their shared ancestry does not make their routes identical.