Negotiators have succeeded in establishing a ceasefire, and in addition to this being a tremendous relief it’s also etymologically appropriate. Ceasefire first appeared in the 19th c., initially as a military command to stop shooting (as in sounding the ceasefire with bugles), and then as a (temporary) truce itself at the end of the First World War, developing from the verb phrase cease fire. The word cease first appeared in English around 1300, coming from Old French cesser “to come to an end, stop, cease; give up, desist”, from Latin cessare “to be remiss, delay, loiter, cease from, stop, give over”, the frequentative form of cedere “to go, to go from, to yield, withdraw, depart, retire, yield”, ultimately traceable back to the Proto-Indo-European root *ked- “to go, yield”. Latin cedere was also combined with sub “under, below, beneath, underneath, behind” which as a prefix could have the meaning “next to, after, in addition to”, producing succedere “to go below, come under, enter; to follow, follow after, succeed”, which passed into Old French as succeder “to follow on”, and coming into English in the 14th c. initially with the sense “to come next after and take the place of”, as in “succeeding to a position of rule or an estate”, and then by the 15th c. developing its modern sense of “to turn out well, arrive at a happy issue, have a favourable result, terminate according to desire” as a shortening of the phrase to succeed well. And of course for a lasting peace, diplomacy is always necessary, a word also from this same PIE root, from the prefixed and suffixed form *ne-ked-ti- “(there is) no drawing back”, which became Latin necesse “inevitable, unavoidable” before passing through Old French into English.
The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is CEASEFIRE/SUCCEED #wotd #ceasefire #succeed
![Many people are enjoying their chocolate-filled Advent calendars right now, but of course those who are diabetic have to make sure they don’t eat too many sugary treats. Advent, the period preceding Christmas, in reference to the “coming” of Christ, first appeared in English as aduent in late Old English, coming from Latin adventus “a coming, approach, arrival”, with specific reference in Church Latin to “the coming of the Savior”, and is the past participle of the Latin verb advenire “to arrive at, come to”, made up from ad “to, toward” (from Proto-Indo-European *ad- “to, near, at”) + venire “to come”, from *gw(e)m-yo-, a suffixed variant form of the PIE root *gwa- “to go, come”. PIE *gw- typically becomes v- in Latin, pronounced [w], but in Greek this consonant went a number of different ways such as b, d, or g, so *gwa- produced the Greek verb bainein “to go, walk, step”, which, when combined with the prefix dia- “through” (probably from PIE *dwo- “two”), produced the verb diabainein “to pass through” and the Late Greek noun diabetes, literally “a passer-through, siphon”. The 2nd c. CE Greek physician Aretaeus the Cappadocian first used the term diabetes to refer to the disease because of its chief symptom “excessive discharge of urine”.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7hesv3ls5txngrvb7mwxou3x/bafkreic73kwwei5umdoxwelz74gsp5guiyc4c3jnxgos7jyy7toshmrg2a)
