dʰeh₁-

The root *dʰeh₁- ("to put, to place, to do, to make") is one of the most productive verbal roots in PIE, generating vocabulary across the semantic spectrum from physical placement to abstract creation. Its productivity rivals that of *steh₂- ("to stand") and *ǵenh₁- ("to beget"). Latin facere ("to do, to make"), from *dʰh₁-k-ye-, shows the zero-grade with a velar extension. The derivatives are extraordinarily numerous: fact, factor, faculty, fashion, feat, feature, affair, affect, confect, defect, effect, infect, perfect, profit, sufficient, difficult, artificial, benefactor, manufacture, and sacrifice (sacri-ficium, "a making sacred"). The participial form factus gives factory, faction, and the suffix -fy (amplify, classify, simplify, signify). The variant formation *dʰe- gives the Latin -dere verbs: addere ("to add," literally "to put to"), condire ("to season," literally "to put together"), credere ("to believe," from *ḱred-dʰeh₁-, "to put one's heart"). Greek títhēmi (τίθημι, "I put, I place") preserves the reduplicated present stem (*dʰi-dʰeh₁-mi). Derivatives include thesis (thésis, "a placing, a proposition"), antithesis, synthesis, hypothesis, epithet (epítheton, "something placed upon," i.e., an attribute), and theme (théma, "something placed down"). Sanskrit dádhāti ("puts, places") shows the same reduplicated present. The derivative dhā́man ("established order, law") and the compound dharma (from *dʰr̥h₁-mo-, "that which holds, established order") — though dharma is debated and may derive from *dʰer- ("to hold") — illustrate the semantic range. In Germanic, English do (from Old English dōn, Proto-Germanic *dōną) and German tun ("to do") continue the root. The English deed (from Old English dǣd) and the suffix -dom (from the nominal derivative *dʰeh₁-mo-, "that which is placed") also belong here. Old Church Slavonic děti ("to put, to do") and Lithuanian dė́ti ("to put, to place") confirm the Balto-Slavic reflex. The convergence of "put" and "do" in a single root is characteristic of PIE: the act of placing something is the prototypical act of doing. The subsequent divergence — Latin specialising in "making" (facere), Greek in "placing" (títhēmi), Germanic in "doing" (do) — illustrates how daughter languages can select different semantic facets of a polysemous root.