From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 28822
Date: 2003-12-28
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "bagoven20"Watkins relates it to *pel- 'to thrust, strike, drive', the
> <bagoven20@...> wrote:
>> I have so many questions mainly on Spanish words. Can
>> anyone give me the story or etymology of the word
>> "tripulante" for ship's crew?
> The base word in Spanish is _tripular_, 'to man (a ship);
> to drive (a car)'.
> I don't know if there's any folk etymology connecting it
> with Greek _tripolis_ (= executive officers + navigation
> officers + men?), but when I looked up the word in the
> Spanish-Spanish section (i.e. the one simply labelled
> 'Español') at http://www.diccionarios.com/ , it derived
> the word from Latin _interpola:re_ 'renovate, do up'.
> Switching to other resources, I find that the -pol- is the
> same as in _poli:re_ 'polish, improve, put in good order'.
> It's been suggested that these words are related to one of
> the PIE *pel roots (I presume Pokorny #1471 pel, pel&-,
> ple: - so presumably *pelh1 - 'to cover, wrap; skin, hide;
> cloth') but Pokorny seems not to list them under any of
> the *pel roots.