On 05-03-15 05:21, loreto bagio wrote:
> Can anyone expound or add more on the etymology/history of the
> English word 'enemy' (allegedly from Middle English enemi, from Old
> French, from Latin inimcus ) ? Or of any other IE (or non-IE) word
> which means the same.
From Lat. inimi:cus 'hostile, unfriendly' < in- (the negative prefix) +
ami:cus 'friendly'. The reduction of medial unstressed *a to /i/ in
Latin is regular.
<ami:cus> is surely related to Lat. amo: 'I love' and amor < *am-os-
'love', but it's hard to say whether it's the same root *am- that occurs
e.g. in family terms such as Lat. amita 'paternal aunt' (the source of
Eng. aunt!) or Gk. amma 'mother, nurse'. If so, it would have originated
as a nursery word of a very common type.
Piotr