You need to be mentally flexible for this exercise: experiment and make your
best guess about what could be a plausible descendant word. With respect to
meaning changes, you will see that the words sometimes narrow in meaning,
sometimes broaden, and sometimes drift, both in reference and metaphorically.
Note also that some IE verbs end up as English nouns, and some IE nouns end
up as English verbs.
- IE word: *smer
Meaning: "grease, fat"
English word:
Meaning change:
- IE word: *gleubh
Meaning: "to cut, split off"
English word:
Meaning change:
- IE word: *del(l)
Meaning: "to split, carve, cut"
English word:
Meaning change: