Etymograph

English

Pest

Pest comes from Old Church Slavonic пещь ‘furnace, oven’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- ‘to crack, crush (foodstuff), pulverize (grain)’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*pekʷ-‘to crack, crush (foodstuff), pulverize (grain)’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-European, derivedc. 4500–2500 BCE*pékʷtisreconstructed
  3. Proto-Balto-Slavicc. 2000–500 BCE*pektís‘oven’reconstructed
  4. Proto-Slavicc. 400–900 CE*peťь‘oven’reconstructed
  5. Old Church Slavonicmodernпещьpeštĭ‘furnace, oven’
  6. HungarianmodernPest
  7. Englishearliest quotation 2014same form

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*pekʷ-‘to crack, crush (foodstuff), pulverize (grain)’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-European, derivedc. 4500–2500 BCE*pékʷtisreconstructed
  3. Proto-Balto-Slavicc. 2000–500 BCE*pektís‘oven’reconstructed
  4. Proto-Slavicc. 400–900 CE*peťь‘oven’reconstructed
  5. Old Church Slavonicmodernпещьpeštĭ‘furnace, oven’
  6. HungarianmodernPest
  7. Englishearliest quotation 2014same form

Earliest quotation: 2014, Seth Kugel, Wintertime Bargains in Budapest: “On a drizzly mid-January evening, I stood at the…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- ‘to crack, crush (foodstuff), pulverize (grain)’

coach, cook, kitchen, pumpkin, cuisine, culinary, kiln, concoction, ricotta, quitter, concoct, decoction, peptic, dyspepsia, 14 more

Today it means

name One of the originally three separate cities that were united in 1873 to become the Hungarian capital, Budapest.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- / Pest

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