E 0686          PIECE

The word " piece " is, via Old French and Late Latin, of uncertain origin .

H 0731         ה ס פ

Concept of root : piece of cloth

Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

ה ס פ;

ס י פ

pissà;

paìs

piece, piece of cloth;

piece, portion

Related English words

piece

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

ה ס פ

ס י פ

pissà

paìs

piece, piece of cloth;

piece, portion

p . s

p . y s

Italian

pezzo;

pezza

petso;

petsa

piece;

piece of cloth

p . ts .

German

Fetzen

fetsen

rag

f . ts .n

Low Breton

pess

pess

piece (of cloth)

p . ss

English

piece

piece

p . c

 

 

Hebrew *PISSÀ, PAĪS --- *PÈZA, *PÈTS- Indo-European

 

 

The origin of Italian "pezza" and "pezzo" , lies in medieval Latin "petia" or "pettia", that should have been derived from Celtic: Low Breton "pez" and earlier "pess". French "pièce", from which English "piece", is of the same origin. Medieval Latin was spoken by people of many tongues and often their words were latinized.

 

Note:
  • German "Fetzen" is related but rather isolated. It seems not to have living sisters in other modern Germanic languages. It is considered as having come from "*petzen" via "pfetzen".

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic. Aramaic and Syriac have "פ ס א , P S Aleph, piss'à ( A ); pèss'à ( S )", with the meaning of "piece, portion". Proto-Semitic probably used the two consonant combination "*פ ס , P . S ." and perhaps also the version with central Yod "*פ י ס , P Y S".

 

Note:
  • Indo-European. According to an existing view, the original meaning of this group of words on the Indo-European side is related to Greek "πεζα, peza = extremity, margin". One must note that a similar "peza" also means "ankle". But our "peza" also says "bank ( of river) ". This is interesting, because also the Hebrew word covers the meanings of "strip, board, edge", besides "piece".

     

    With the considerable number of languages that use this word and the similarity of words like Spanish "pieza", Provençal "peza" and Italian "pezza" with Greek "peza", a hypothesis for Indo-European can be tried: "*P È Z-" or "*P ÈTS-"

 

 

 

 

 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 30/12/2012 at 10.15.49