h₁leydʰ-
“to go, to depart, to die”Go, depart, die
A PIE verbal root meaning "to go, to depart," with extensions in Germanic: Old English lǣdan ("to lead, to guide"), whence English lead (the verb); and lī̆ðan ("to go, to travel"), whence archaic lithe ("to go"). The root connects ideas of going, guiding, and departure.
Discussion
The root *h₁leydʰ- ("to go") is reconstructed from Old English līðan ("to go, to travel, to sail"), Old High German līdan ("to go, to suffer"), and Old Norse líða ("to go, to pass"). The causative *h₁loydʰ-éye- ("to make go, to guide") gave Old English lǣdan ("to lead"), whence modern English lead. Pokorny (IEW 672) discusses the root.
English lead (Old English lǣdan, "to cause to go, to guide") is a causative formation: "to make someone go" became "to guide, to direct." This is one of the most common English verbs, with leadership, leader, and mislead as productive derivatives. The semantic development from "cause to go" to "guide" to "be in front" to "command" illustrates a natural chain of extensions.
Old English līðan ("to go, to travel, to sail") survives in archaic and dialectal English. The compound lī̆ð-mann ("traveler, seafarer") appears in Old English poetry. German leiden ("to suffer") preserves a semantic shift from "to go through" to "to endure, to suffer" — an experiential metaphor.
Old Norse líða ("to go, to pass") contributed to the Middle English vocabulary of movement. The participial form liðr ("gone, past") shows the temporal extension from spatial movement to the passage of time.
The root's productivity in Germanic, particularly the high-frequency verb lead, makes it an important entry point for understanding how PIE verbal roots generated everyday English vocabulary through regular causative formations.
Notes
gsc-gap: source of "lead" (to guide), possibly connected to "leave"
Laryngeal Analysis
Initial *h₁- lost in all branches.
Ablaut
Full grade *h₁leydʰ-, zero grade *h₁lidʰ-.