✣ Word Garden

Proto-Indo-European · 24 August 2026

A word a day week

*steh₂-

approximately ‘steh₂’ · reconstructed root

  • to stand
  • to set in place

Stand, state, station, and static look busy now, but their older family occupation was simply staying upright.

Then → now

The family reunion

*steh₂- → Proto-Germanic *standaną → Old English standan → English stand; *steh₂- → Latin stāre → Latin statiō → English station; *steh₂- → Latin status → English status; *steh₂- → Ancient Greek histánai → Greek statikós → English static
Selected routes, not an exhaustive family tree. Intermediate forms are simplified for a readable first look.
  • GermanicEnglish standbe upright
  • ItalicEnglish stationa standing place
  • ItalicEnglish statuscondition; standing
  • GreekEnglish staticcausing to stand

Tiny sentence

*só stéh₂ti.

he.NOM stand.PRS.3SG

“He stands.”

A teaching reconstruction. The root’s formations and the development of *-st- words involve more than one morphological route.

Receipts

Sources and cautions

The diagram groups familiar descendants by selected historical routes; sharing the root does not mean each modern word descended directly from the bare form shown above.