A PROLIFERATING WORD

Today I'd like to talk about the Latin verb ferre, which has been extremely influential in English. It meant "to bear" or "carry", comes from the Proto-Indo-European verb bereti, and was used as a root in many other words:

• With the prefix trans-, meaning "across", it gave us the word transfer
• With conus, meaning "cone", we got the word coniferous
• With aqua, the word for "water", it developed into aquifer
• With the prefix de-, meaning "down" or "away", it gave us defer
• Tacking on the prefix re-, meaning "back", gives use the word refer
• With prae, meaning "before", we got the word prefer
• With in- ("into"), it became infer, on the notion of "carrying in" an inference
• With -dis, meaning "apart", we got the word difference
• By adding on sub ("up" or "under"), the result developed into suffer
• With the prefix ob-, meaning "toward", we got the word offer

And so much more (including vociferous, proliferate, circumference)! It's crazy to think that all these important terms are connected through a single simple Latin verb.