Kilo Lingo

Line drawing of kverko
Coloured illustration of kverko
#2012 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

oak, oak tree

Word origin

From Latin quercus, the oak, which survives unchanged as the botanical genus name Quercus. Esperanto takes its tree names from the scientific Latin wherever it can, which is why kverko looks nothing like the English word.

Origin
Latin
Root
quercus

Examples

.

An old oak stands in front of the house.

.

The table is made of oak.

.

The children played under the oak all day.

is the tree and also the timber: is an oak table, and you do not need a separate word for the wood the way English half-does with oaken. The acorn is glano, the oak wood specifically is kverkligno when you want to be explicit, and a stand of them is a o.

Esperanto's plant and animal names come almost entirely from scientific Latin, which is a design decision rather than an accident. It means will be unfamiliar to an English speaker and instantly readable to anyone who has met a botany textbook in any language. The same rule gives you betulo for birch and fago for beech, both a long way from English and both exactly the genus name.

There is no -erk- affix, in case the middle of the word looked suspicious. Esperanto's official affix list is short and closed, and nothing in it resembles that string. - is one root, borrowed from quercus with the ending swapped, and no part of it can be pulled out and reused.

Where this fits

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Esperanto · Free printables

kverko: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "kverko" (oak, oak tree): 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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This word is part of lesson 41.