bʰerH-eyo-
“to keep bearing, enduring”forbear, forbearance, suffer
Iterative of *bʰerH- giving Latin ferre compounds: suffer, transfer, confer, differ, offer.
Discussion
The form *bʰerH-eyo- represents an iterative-intensive derivation of the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰer- ("to carry, to bear"), one of the most widely attested verbal roots in the family. The iterative suffix *-eyo- conveyed repeated or sustained action, giving *bʰerH-eyo- the sense "to keep bearing, to endure, to carry on through hardship." In Latin, *bʰer- yielded ferre ("to carry"), with the characteristic shift of PIE *bʰ to Latin f. The compound sufferre (from sub- + ferre, "to carry from below, to bear up under") crystallized the endurance sense, passing through Old French into English as suffer — a word whose etymological meaning is not passive victimhood but the active bearing of a weight from beneath. Bear itself continues the root through the Germanic line (Old English beran), where the iterative sense survives in forbear ("to bear away from, to restrain oneself, to endure without reacting"). German gebären ("to give birth") preserves perhaps the most viscerally physical reading of sustained carrying — the bearing of a child to term and through delivery. Greek phérō (φέρω, "to carry, to bear") connects to the same root, with regular treatment of *bʰ as Greek ph. The semantic thread linking all these descendants is the notion that carrying is not a momentary act but an ongoing condition: one bears weight, bears children, bears suffering, and forbears provocation, all through sustained effort. The iterative *bʰerH-eyo- encoded in its very morphology what the daughter languages would express lexically — that true bearing is endurance.