Timeline for Words with "bi-" prefix that no longer mean "two"
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 27, 2018 at 8:34 | comment | added | Selene Routley | ... examples where "bi-" was the Greco-latin prefix, but +1 nonetheless! | |
| Jun 27, 2018 at 8:33 | comment | added | Selene Routley | Lovely! I never knew this! And in Middle English, the Germanic "be-" prefix (i.e. the one roughly analogous to, and with the same origin as, "be-" in standard German, as opposed to Greek "bi-" e.g. bewilder, befit, believe....), supposedly from was often written "bi-" by many authors, particularly Chaucer. So this is a very good example because exactly the same thing used to happen in English; I can't think of any "be-" words that keep the Chaucerian spelling in modern English. I bilieve (believe :) ) "Biforn" for "before" still exists in some dialects. Strictly speaking, the OP wanted ... | |
| Jun 23, 2018 at 20:37 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | Precisely. It’s basically a ‘bywatch’. | |
| Jun 23, 2018 at 20:36 | comment | added | Wolfgang | @Bahs Ah, I guess its more related to words that refer to "additional" or "supplementary" as in bypass, byproduct, or bylaw then. | |
| Jun 23, 2018 at 15:12 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | Good lateral thinking, but etymologically not the bi- prefix, so I’m not sure if it really counts, though they have ended up looking the same in English. The bei- noted here is a common Germanic preposition (cognate with English by), which is unrelated to the Latin bi- prefix (from earlier *du̯i-, combining form of *du̯ō- ‘two’). | |
| Jun 22, 2018 at 17:12 | history | answered | Wolfgang | CC BY-SA 4.0 |