--- In
cybalist@egroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Slavic *sve~t-o- [skipped]. The meaning 'holy' became dominant
after the introduction of Christianity; the old central meaning
was 'powerful, vigorous'.
Rather 'sacred'. Quite a pagan term, also supported by Baltic
cognates whose basic meaning is '(pagan) festival', which of course
could be related to 'powerful, vigorous', but I'm not aware of any
*direct* evidence.
Sergei