ghes-
“to eat, to consume food”eat, consume
Root for eating, yielding Latin heri (yesterday, past consumption), English gorge (possibly).
Discussion
The PIE root *ghes- (to eat, to consume food) is a second PIE verb for eating, distinct from *h₁ed- (to eat, to bite). The coexistence of two eat-verbs in PIE may reflect a semantic distinction — perhaps *h₁ed- was the general verb while *ghes- carried a more specific nuance of consuming or devouring — though the precise differentiation is debated.
The root is not as widely attested as *h₁ed- but appears in significant derivatives. Greek khortázein (to feed, to fill with food) and the related noun khórtos (feeding-place, enclosure, yard) may continue the root, though the phonological details are debated. If connected, the English word court (from Latin cohors/cors, "enclosed yard" — possibly from a related form) would be a distant descendant.
The primary significance of *ghes- lies in what it tells us about PIE lexical structure: the proto-language had multiple verbs for the act of eating, just as it had multiple nouns for water (*wódr̥, *h₂ekʷ-, *h₂ep-). This lexical richness suggests that the PIE speakers made finer semantic distinctions than any single daughter language preserves — each branch selected different roots from the PIE vocabulary, letting others fall into disuse.
Notes
Pokorny 431.