Word Groups: Cad, Cas, Cid; Cand; Caneh; and Cap, Cept
Latin and Greek families of words
Many English words come from closely related family groups
Word group: Latin cad, cas, cid, "to fall"
Why is the word occident, which means "the lands of the West, from the same root that means "to fall"?
It is because to ancient people, the rising of the sun each morning was a dramatic event, signaling the end of night and the beginning of day.
When the sun went down at the end of the day, it was seen to fall in the general direction of the Western lands. Ancient people reckoned their directions by the rising and setting of the sun. The Orient meant the direction of the rising sun, the lands of the "East".
Today, when you orient yourself, you determine your position. In these modern times, you may, or may not, use the sun as your guide, but your ancestors certainly did.
- accident: A sudden fall or collision; an unexpected happening.
- cadaver: A fallen or dead body; a corpse.
- occasion: A happening; a special event.
- occasional: Happening now and then; infrequent.
- cadenza: A brilliant musical passage, rich in rises and falls.
- coincide: To be exactly the same; to occur at the same timce.
- decadence: A falling or decline in morals or culture.
- deciduous: Falling off at certain seasons or stages of growth; short lived; temporary.
- coincidence, coincident: Falling together.
- occident: Direction of the setting (falling) sun; the Western hemisphere.
- chance: A happening; an accidental occurrence.
- cadence: The rise and fall of the voice in talking; rhythmic movement in dancing or marching.
- case: An example or occurrence; something that happened to befall.
- incident: An occurrence; something that befell; a minor event.
- decay: To lose strength; to deteriorate, waste away.
Word group: Latin cand, "to glow, to be shining white, to burn" from candere, "to glow white"
With political corruption making daily headlines, and with elected officials serving jail terms, we can not help but marvel at the fact that the word candidate derives from the root which means "to be shining white". White, of course, symbolizes purity.
The meaning of root originated with an old Roman custom. When a man ran for public office in ancient Rome, he wore a toga; a long, shining, white cloak.
With this garb, the candidate stood out in a crowd. The people took notice of him and, because of his white garment, associated the candidate with honesty and goodness.
- candelabrum: A large, multibranched candle holder.
- candle: A cylinder of wax with a wick enclosed which gives light when burned.
- incense: Spices burned for their sweet smell.
- incense: To make someone burn with anger.
- chandelier: A branched lighting fixture, usually hanging from the ceiling.
- candor: Honesty, frankness, sincerity, freedom from bias.
- incandescent: Very bright, glowing with light and/or heat.
- incendiary: A person who deliberately starts a fire; stirring up trouble.
- candidate: A person who seeks to run for a political office.
- candid: Honest, frank, outspoken, unbiased.
Word group: Hebrew kaneh, "reed"; Latin canna, "reed, pipe"
Long ago, tall, slender, and hollow reeds grew on the banks of the Jordan and the Nile Rivers. The word for reed in the Hebrew, Arabic, and Egyptian languages was kaneh. The word passed over into Greek and Latin, and into the languages of western Europe.
A rather remarkable word family grew from the root canna. Some are easy to trace back. Sugar "cane", a walking "cane", even a "cannon" are all clearly related to the reed in shape. With just a little imagination, the words "canal" and "channel" can also be associated with a pipe or groove.
It is probably more difficult to see how the word canon, or "law", derives from the root meaning "reed". Since reeds were long and straight, they were often used as measuring rods. From this concept, "reed" came to mean "a standard" and ultimately, "an authoritative standard", or "law".
- canonize: To declare someone a saint.
- canal: A groove; an artificial waterway.
- canyon: A narrow valley between high cliffs.
- cannon: A large gun.
- cane: A walking stick. A plant with a slender, hollow stem.
- canister: A can for storing things.
- channel: A long groove; a body of water joining two larger bodies of water; a passageway. A transmitting band assigned to a broadcast station. To direct into a groove.
- canon: A law; a criterion or standard used in judging.
Word group: Latin cap, cept, "to take, to seize"; capere, "to take"
This word element forms a small, but important, part of a large and important word: emancipation. When you become experienced at finding roots, prefixes, and suffixes in words, you will be able to take long words apart, and then put the parts together to discover the meaning of the word.
Emancipation literally means "the act of taking out of the hand"; therefore, "the act of setting free".
- conceive: To take in; to understand, apprehend, imagine; to become pregnant.
- intercept: To take, to seize, or to stop on the way; to interrupt, to hinder, to prevent.
- capable: Able to take hold; skilled, competent.
- receive: To get, to acquire, to take into one's possession.
- accept: To take willingly.
- capacious: Able to hold a lot, roomy, spacious.
- capture: To take by force or surprise, to seize.
- capture: To grasp the essence; as "with a few strokes of his brush, the artist capured the man's personality in the portrait."
- except: Taking or leaving out, omitting, excluding.
- captive: Someone held in confinement, a prisoner.
- captivate: To take with one's charms, to hold the attention or affection, to fascinate.
- perception: Taking in through the senses or the mind, awareness, insight, intuition.
- precept: A rule of action or moral conduct.
- participate: To take part in, to share in.
- emancipate: To set free.
- susceptible: Able to take in: sensitive; responsive; easily affected or influenced.
- deceive: To take the truth from a person, to delude, to mislead.
- capacity: The ability to contain or to hold; aptitude.
- anticipate: To feel beforehand, to expect, to look forward to.
- conceit: Taking in an exaggerated self-concept, vanity, holding a high opinion of one's own merits.
—Information for these vocabulary groups came from
Words Come in Families by Edward Horowitz, PhD.;
Hart Publishing Company, Inc.; New York; 1977; pages 25-38.
This site includes many words that are used in our modern age,, especially those from "Latin-Greek sources".
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