Re: Hospitable/hostile (Was: Dipping my toe in the water)

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It seems that the Indoeuropean
word might have benn something like *ghostis. The key to the
apparantly
conflicting meanings, it that this word would have meant 'stranger'.

>>
Hot PIE roots coming through! It turns out host and guest are both
the same word because they have both participated in the "reciprocal
duties of hospitality":

ENTRY: ghos-ti-
DEFINITION: Stranger, guest, host; properly "someone with whom one
has reciprocal duties of hospitality." 1. Basic form *ghos-ti-. a.
(i) guest, from Old Norse gestr, guest; (ii) Gastarbeiter, from Old
High German gast, guest. Both (i) and (ii) from Germanic *gastiz; b.
host2, hostile, from Latin hostis, enemy (< "stranger"). 2. Compound
*ghos-pot-, *ghos-po(d)-, "guest-master," one who symbolizes the
relationship of reciprocal obligation (*pot-, master; see poti-).
hospice, hospitable, hospital, hospitality, host1, hostage, hostel,
hostler, from Latin hospes (stem hospit-), host, guest, stranger. 3.
Suffixed zero-grade form *ghs-en-wo-. xenia, xeno-, xenon; axenic,
euxenite, pyroxene, from Greek xenos, guest, host, stranger. (Pokorny
ghosti-s 453.)

Imperative

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