1860: *Red- as a Root Jan 18, 2020

Many words words with meanings long the lines of 'scratch' or 'gnaw' can be traced back to an approximated common root. For instance, 'abrasion', 'corrode', 'erode' 'rodent' and even 'rostrum' all are thought to have derived from an element that would look like '*red-'. The list goes on and clearly includes words of many other languages, but it is also worth noting some others that have been included that would be less obvious nowadays, like 'rascal', 'rash' and 'razor'. It is clear to see that both semantically and morphologically, these derivatives have strayed far from what it understood to be the ancestor.

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