Where does “greengrocer” come from?
Greengrocer comes from English green and grocer, where grocer derives from Old French -er and Latin -are denoting agent nouns, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European gʰreh₁-.
greengrocer (English): A person who sells fresh vegetables and fruit,...
Definitions
- A person who sells fresh vegetables and fruit,...
Ancestry of “greengrocer”, step by step
greengrocer traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English grocer
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | grocer | A person who retails groceries from a grocery;... |
| 2 | French | grossier | coarse; shoddy; gross |
| 3 | French | -ier | used to form the names of trees bearing a... |
| 4 | Middle French | -er | Forms infinitives of first-conjugation verbs;... |
| 5 | Latin | -āre | first conjugation |
| 6 | Proto-Italic | -āō | Forms primarily denominative verbs |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | -eh₂yéti | Creates iterative/ frequentative/ intensive... |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | -yéti | Creates intransitive, often deponent,... |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | yé- | — |
| 10 | Chichewa | iye | he, she |