gʷʰen-
“to strike, to kill”Strike, slay, kill
A PIE verbal root meaning "to strike, to kill," with reflexes in Hittite kuenzi (the earliest attested form), Greek theínō and phónos, Sanskrit hánti, English bane, and Old Church Slavonic ženǫ ("to drive, to chase").
Discussion
The root *gʷʰen- ("to strike, to kill") is reconstructed in Pokorny (IEW 491–493) and Rix (LIV²) with the primary meaning of violent striking, extended to killing in most branches. The initial labialised voiced aspirate *gʷʰ- undergoes distinctive treatments across the family, making this root a useful phonological diagnostic. The Hittite evidence is of particular importance, as Hittite kuenzi ("kills") provides the earliest written attestation of any IE form and preserves the labiovelar without the aspiration distinction lost in Anatolian.
Greek theínō (θείνω, "I strike") shows the Attic development of *gʷʰ- before a front vowel. The o-grade nominal derivative phónos (φόνος, "murder, slaughter"), from *gʷʰón-os, is widely attested in literary Greek and its compounds: autóphonos ("self-killing"), androphónos ("man-slaying"). The relationship between phónos ("killing") and phōnḗ (φωνή, "voice, sound") has been treated by Chantraine (Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque) and Beekes, who connect phōnḗ to the same root through the sense of "striking" the air or the ear, though this etymology is not universally accepted.
Sanskrit hánti ("strikes, kills") shows the regular Indo-Iranian development *gʷʰ > h (with loss of labialisation and deaspiration to h). The past participle hatá- ("struck, killed") and the causative ghātáyati ("causes to kill") are productive in Sanskrit literature. The Avestan cognate jainti ("strikes") shows the expected Iranian reflex. The morphological alternation between the full-grade root hán- and the zero-grade -ghn- (as in the compound brahma-ghná-, "Brahman-slayer") provides evidence for the PIE ablaut pattern of this root.
In Germanic, the reflex is debated for certain forms. Old English bana ("slayer, murderer," Modern English bane) has been connected to this root, though the phonological pathway (*gʷʰ > *b in Germanic, rather than the expected *gw) requires additional explanation. Gothic banja ("wound, blow") may belong here. The semantic field of striking and killing in Germanic was largely taken over by other roots (*slah- "to strike," *kwelh₁- "to kill"), reducing the visibility of *gʷʰen- in that branch.
Armenian janem ("I strike") and Old Church Slavonic ženǫ ("I drive, I chase") extend the attestation to those branches. The Slavic semantic shift from "striking" to "driving, chasing" — attested also in the derived meaning "to hunt" — represents a plausible development: game is driven by being struck at. Benveniste (1969) discusses the relationship between striking and hunting in PIE vocabulary. The Hittite form kuenzi, as the earliest documented reflex, is treated in detail by Kloekhorst (Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon, 2008), who confirms its derivation from *gʷʰen-.
Laryngeal Analysis
No laryngeal.
Ablaut
Full grade *gʷʰen-, zero grade *gʷʰn̥-.