Translation
cradle
Word origin
Built in Esperanto from luli, to lull or rock, plus the tool suffix -il-. Luli is imitative in the way lullabies are imitative everywhere: it is the sound you make to a baby, turned into a verb.
- Origin
- Esperanto, on an imitative root
- Root
- lul- + -il-
- English cognates
- lull, lullaby
Examples
.
The baby is sleeping in the cradle.
.
The cradle stood next to the window.
.
My grandfather made that cradle out of wood.
Decode it. Lul--o. , at rank 1895, is to lull or to rock: what you do to a baby to get it to sleep. The suffix -- makes the tool that does the thing, the way gives o for a knife and gives o for a toy. The tool for lulling is a cradle. You could have built this word yourself before you ever met it, which is the whole promise of the affix system, kept.
The family. A lulkanto is a lullaby, lul- plus song, and it is one of those compounds that is more transparent than the English. and lulkanto belong together: the thing that rocks and the thing that is sung over it.
There is a small warmth in Esperanto's treatment of this corner of the vocabulary that is worth noticing. The language did not borrow a special word for cradle from anywhere. It took the noise a parent makes, made it a verb, and hung a tool on the end. Every part of is something a child could work out, and the word ends up sounding like what it is.
Where this fits
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lulilo: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "lulilo" (cradle): 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 50.