✣ Word Garden

Proto-Indo-European · 17 August 2026

A word a day week

*h₁ed-

approximately ‘ed’ · reconstructed root

  • to eat

One of the easiest ancient family resemblances to taste: English eat and Latin-derived edible still sit close to the same table.

Then → now

The family reunion

*h₁ed- → Proto-Germanic *etaną → Old English etan → English eat; *h₁ed- → Latin edō → Latin edibilis → English edible; *h₁ed- → Sanskrit átti; *h₁ed- → Lithuanian ė́sti
Selected routes, not an exhaustive family tree. Intermediate forms are simplified for a readable first look.
  • GermanicEnglish eatconsume food
  • ItalicEnglish ediblefit to eat
  • Indo-AryanSanskrit áttieats
  • BalticLithuanian ė́stito eat

Tiny sentence

*só h₁édti.

he.NOM eat.PRS.3SG

“He eats.”

A compact pedagogical reconstruction, not an attested quotation. The spelling exposes a reconstructed laryngeal that would not have survived unchanged in the daughters.

Receipts

Sources and cautions

The reconstruction and selected reflexes follow comparative entries; exact ablaut grades and verbal formations deserve more space than a snack-sized page permits.