Translation
courtier
Word origin
Three Esperanto pieces on top of one borrowed root: korto ('yard, courtyard'), from Latin cohors, then -eg- to make it grand, then -an- to make somebody a member of it.
- Origin
- Esperanto derivation
- Root
- kort- + -eg- + -an-
- English cognates
- court, courtier, cohort
Examples
.
The courtiers waited for the king in the great hall.
.
He was a rich courtier at the young king's court.
.
No courtier dared to tell the truth.
Peel it in the order it was built. is a yard, the space enclosed by
a building. Add --, the augmentative, and you get
kortego: not a big yard but a royal court, the
household and the ceremony that fills it. Then add -an-, the member suffix,
and you get a member of that household: a courtier. Nothing was borrowed except
the first four letters, and English arrived at courtier by very nearly the
same route several centuries earlier.
-An- is one of the best machines in the language. It turns any group into
its members and it never asks permission: o a club member, o a
townsperson, o a villager, a fellow believer,
a Christian, o a republican, o a crew member,
o a member of the family. Learn the suffix once and you have several
hundred words. It pairs naturally with --, which gives you the person in
charge of the same thing, so a o runs the court that a
merely lives in.
The register is historical, and slightly sceptical. A is a
courtier in the full sense English gives the word: somebody whose occupation is
being present. o is the condition, a is the adjective, and
i would be to hang about a court to no purpose, which is the sort of
thing -um- is for.
Where this fits
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kortegano: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "kortegano" (courtier): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 55.