From time to time, I will dive into certain PIE (Proto Indo European) roots.  PIE is fascinating because it is essentially a reconstructed language that linguists uncovered within the languages spoken by Indo-Europeans today.  Since it was likely to have been spoken in Neolithic times, no one has ever heard anyone speaking PIE, yet its roots can be heard every day.  I have most certainly used a very large amount of PIE root words in writing this paragraph.  Count them if you have an hour or two to spare and let me know what you find!

Today I’d like to talk about the PIE root eis, from which we get words like pediatrics, ire, hierophant, and so on.  Shipley defines eis thusly, “set in quick motion ; wrath ; divine power.”  In a way, this root imbues a word with a kick of that divine power.  Take, for example, the word iron, from the German, eisen, meaning “holy metal.” Iron certainly changed our world, to the extent that an entire age of mankind is named after it, so it is no wonder that the ancient germanic people gave this substance a name that recalled for them the passion of wrath and divine power.

Or consider the way we name specialized medical fields, pediatrics, geriatrics.  In these words you can find the Greek word iatros, which meant, “healer.”  And where did the Greeks get iatros from?  That’s right, the PIE root eis.  It makes sense why, when you consider that in ancient times, the healing arts and spirituality were inseparably intertwined.

There are also those who think this root can be found in words like estrogen and estrus. Two words which represent the divine power possessed by the females of species to create life itself.

Pictured is an image from the Thoth Tarot deck of the trump card The Hierophant, from the Greek words hieros, meaning, “sacred,” and phainein, meaning, “to bring to light.”  Thus, literally, “one who brings to light the sacred.”