Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/krewh₂-

This Proto-Indo-European entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Indo-European

Root

*krewh₂-

1. blood outside the body (as of a wound)
   1. (by extension) bloody or raw flesh, raw meat; (in adjectives) bloody, raw
   2. ^? wound
   3. ^? hardened blood, scab

Usage notes

PIE apparently distinguished two roots for “blood”, depending on whether it was found inside the body or outside. The former was *h₁esh₂-, the latter *krewh₂-. The lexical distinction between the two is argued to indicate two distinct metaphorical sets, which have been preserved in various derivatives and extensions in the daughters.

The root *krewh₂- yielded words signifying aggression (e.g. in derivatives such as Latin crūdēlis (“cruel”) and Sanskrit क्रूर (krūra, “cruel”)) and dying (e.g. Old Norse hræ (“corpse, carcass, wreck”)), though the semantic developments have had various explanations. The association with wounds may have led to words for the hardening (or “freezing”) of “outside blood” as in a scab, e.g. in derivatives such as Latin crusta (“crust”), Old Irish crúaid (“hard”), Latvian kreve (“coagulated blood”) and Ancient Greek κρύος (krúos, “cold”); however, these have been argued as from a separate root *krews- (“to freeze, harden”). The semantic field was thus associated with wounding, death, and possibly drying out/hardening of the body.

On the other hand, the root *h₁ésh₂r̥ has been associated with the notion of life-giving bodily fluid, and also with the patrilineal line in kinship terminology. Compare the animacy distinction proposed to explain the slightly different semantics of *h₁n̥gʷnís (“(moving) fire, essence of fire^?, lifegiving fire^?; Fire God”) and *péh₂wr̥ (“fire (as a substance or instance)”) as animate and inanimate respectively, and likewise with *h₂éps (“water”, animate) and *wódr̥ (“water”, inanimate), but confusingly the expected semantics are reversed in the “blood” nouns, as grammatically *kréwh₂s is animate (masculine or feminine; though not the neuter s-stem) and *h₁ésh₂r̥ inanimate (neuter). This could point to the original distinction being “blood visibly flowing (from a wound)” (= animate) versus “blood as a substance” (= inanimate) in pre-PIE.

Synonyms

• *h₁ésh₂r̥ (“(flowing) blood”)

Derived terms

Terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *krewh₂- (12 c, 0 e)

• *kréwh₂-s ~ *kruh₂-és
• *kréwh₂-s ~ *kruh₂-s-és
• *kruh₂-ró-s