I am a business lawyer and I love words and word origins.
For those who don’t, now is the time to turn back. To borrow and expand Dante’s warning: “ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE. BEGONE ALL TIMID AND TREMULOUS SOULS!” What follows is strictly for the etymologically-obsessed.
The core word in question is an ancient Greek word, dating back to Homer, which we may transliterate as “fero.”
Even in Homer’s day, fero did sprightly duty as a lively verb. It first meant “to bear,” as in “to carry a load.” It then came to mean “to bring or to fetch,” as in “bring this” and “fetch that.” You can veritably see it in action as Homer dispatches winged messengers or depicts soldiers burdened with heavy loads.
The word came into Latin as an equally lively verb with the same primary meanings. One form, ferre, meant “to bear” or “to bring” and the other, latus (technically, the perfect passive participle form of the verb whose principal parts are ferre, tuli, latus), meant “having been borne (or brought)” or simply “borne” or “brought.” Two forms, same verb.
So how did this word enter into English? Do you know an English word called fero or ferre or latus? No such word exists. Yet the word lies embedded within words we use countless times every day.
Consider confer and collate. Con is a Latin prefix meaning “with” or “together.” Joined with ferre (“to bring”), it gave us con-ferre, a word connoting “to bring together.” The latus form is con-latus, which by assimilation became collatus, connoting “brought together.” So, in English, we get confer, which has the sense “to bring together,” as when you confer with somebody. We also get collate, which has the sense “brought together.” So too with related words: a conference is a “bringing together” (of persons) while a collation is a state of things “brought together.”
Ferre also linked itself with other prefixes. Thus, the Latin prefix “dis,” which connotes the idea of separation, became “dif” by process of assimilation and then joined with ferre (“to bring”) to give us dif-ferre, which connotes “to bring apart.” We get the English differ from this, which has a strong sense of “bringing apart.” What is its latus counterpart? When dis- became prefixed with latus, and became assimilated, it became di-latus (“brought apart”). And so the English word dilate connotes the idea of “brought apart,” as in dilation of the pupils of one’s eyes.
Want more? When you make an offer, you bring something to someone (ob = “to” or “toward,” plus ferre = “to bring” — ob-ferre by assimilation became offerre, from which we get offer). The latus counterpart is oblation (“brought to” (for sacrifice)).
When you prefer something over something else, you bring it before the other thing (pre = “before (in rank),” plus ferre = “to bring”). Its counterpart: prelate (“brought before (in rank)”).
What happens when you bring someone’s mind back to someone or something? You refer to it (re = “back,” plus ferre = “to bring” connotes “to bring back”). So too a reference is something that brings you back to something else.
What about the flip side? Here we have re = “back,” plus latus = “brought,” connoting “brought back.” Things that are related are “brought back” to one another, in our thinking or otherwise.
When you “bring” (ferre) something “across” (trans), you transfer it. In turn, when something has been “brought across,” it has been translated (trans = “across,” plus latus = “brought”).
So too defer (“to bring down”), infer (“to bring in”), proffer (“to bring before” (spatially)). The counterparts here are lesser known but very real English words (delation, illation, prolation).
Are you still with me, O kindred spirit?
Circum-ferre connotes “to bring around.” Hence circumference. With peri (a Greek prefix also meaning “around”) instead of circum, we get periphery.
In college, I took advanced calculus and vividly remember a professor who used to take malicious delight in talking about the little “radicals” with which he would then proceed to torture us. Well, from my bruised and battered past, I can hear a voice cry out: This is pay-back time! Now I get to take a little malicious delight of my own as I drag you down into the pit of esoteric, semi-useless knowledge.
What happens when you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, like between two people? Yes, that’s right, you interfere with them — inter = “between,” plus ferre = “to bring,” giving us inter-ferre, “to bring between.” So too when a football player runs interference, he brings himself between his player and the attacking player.
How about when you suffer? What could that possibly have to do with words like interfere? I’m glad you asked, O skeptical reader. When you suffer, you “bear under” something (sub = “under,” plus ferre = “to bear” — sub-ferre by assimilation became sufferre, from which we get suffer).
Musn’t forget about assimilation. It happens all the time, even today. When we bring forth even our most elegant English, we could say “it ain’t” but by process of assimilation we can say “’tain’t” instead, as in “’tain’t true.” In time, ’tain’t joins the ranks of respectable English words. Well, maybe not, but you get the point: we often simplify words over time to make them easier to speak and this can give us new word variations.
Had enough? I can hear screaming out there. We are here well past the point where my office staff dons earplugs to avert further aural attack.
When someone is brought out from his senses, he is elated (e (a form of the prefix ex) = “out from,” plus latus = ” (having been) brought”).
And when something stands high above comparable items, it is superlative (super = “above,” plus latus = “(having been) brought”).
Something that bears light is phosphorous (using the Greek word for “light”) or luciferous (using the Latin). If it bears an odor, it is odiferous. And if it bears a load generally, we can simply call it a ferry.
We thus come full circle, from fero to ferry, “bringing and bearing,” this way and that, along the way.
Now you can tell your friends how circumference, collate, confer, defer, differ, dilate, elation, ferry, infer, interfere, luciferous, offer, oblation, odiferous, periphery, phosphorous, prefer, prelate, proffer, refer, relate, suffer, superlative, transfer, translate, and others all come from the same word — like first cousins in a great word family.
In a nod to Dante’s warning with which we began, we might note the sneakiest “light-bearer” of all: lux (lucis) = “light,” plus ferre = “to bear,” which gives us Lucifer. If you see him, don’t despair but do (like Chaucer’s pilgrims) put on your Christo-pher.
Remember: you can do something before (“pre”) or you can do it after (“post”), or you can do it both before and after, but if you claim you can do it before and after at the same time, you are being pre-post-erous = English preposterous. But that is a different word family, best left for another day.