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Do you have questions about the usage or meaning of “*per”? Just ask here and I’ll try to clear it up.
*per
The core idea of this root was:
going beyond, going forth
And a lot of its children revolve in some way around the idea of travelling or exploring – like for instance the German fahren and führen or the English further.
It’s the origin of Latin prefixes like per-, pro-, pro- and also of the Germanic branch around for(e) and German vor, which are all about either “going forth” or a more abstract notion of going beyond a boundary.
The root is also the origin of German fahren and führen and the English fare, which all come from a sense of travelling, going into the unknown.
You can get a really good understanding of how the core idea can lead to various meanings by looking at German ver-.
The family is very big, but here’s an incomplete list of English members:
- pre- (mixed)
- pro- (mixed)
- per- (mixed)
- para- (beyond)
- to fare, far (venturing)
- for (from person A to person B)
- forward, forth, further (going ahead)
This root gave rise to 1321+ German words.
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This is an amazing tool. Thank you!
It’ll be even better in a week :)
This is great! It’s top of the line for any dictionary, and an example of that which sets this site apart from any that I’ve seen or used.
Thank you!! More to come :)
I like these word families and think they will help me to learn more words.
BTW, the English entries for ‘inwiefern’ should say ‘extent’ (not ‘extend’).
Fixed it, thank you!! Glad you like it, I’m already working on improving it.