h₃ey-mn̥-
“way, path, journey”itinerary, obituary, transit
Nominal yielding Latin iter > itinerary, obitus > obituary, transitus > transit.
Discussion
The PIE form *h₃ey-mn̥- (way, path, journey) is a result noun from the verbal root *h₃ey- (to go), formed with the suffix *-mn̥- that creates nouns denoting the product of an action. The literal sense is "a going" — a path conceived as the trace left by the act of travelling.
Latin iter (journey, route, way — genitive itineris) continues the root directly and generated the English derivative family: itinerary (a planned route of travel), itinerant (travelling from place to place), and the legal term right of way in its original Roman sense (iter as a legal easement, the right to walk across another's land).
The same root in a different formation produced Latin ire (to go) — one of the most irregular but most fundamental Latin verbs. From ire and its compounds: exit (ex-ire, "to go out"), transit (trans-ire, "to go across"), ambition (amb-ire, "to go around" — originally canvassing for votes by going around soliciting support), circuit (circum-ire, "to go around"), initial (initium, "a going in," a beginning), obituary (obitus, "a going toward," a death — one's going toward the end), perish (per-ire, "to go through," to be destroyed), sedition (sed-itio, "a going apart," a revolt), and the grammatical term transitive (a verb that "goes across" to an object).
Greek oîmos (οἶμος, "way, path, song" — the connection between path and song reflecting the oral poet's "path" through a narrative) preserves the root in a poetic register. The Homeric phrase oímē aoidês ("path of song") encodes the metaphor of narrative as journey that persists in modern literary criticism.
Sanskrit éti ("he goes") and áyana- ("way, path, course") continue the root in the Indo-Iranian branch. The compound Mahāyāna ("great vehicle/way") and Hīnayāna ("lesser vehicle/way") in Buddhist terminology show the root in one of its most culturally significant deployments — the "way" of Buddhist practice.
Hittite iya- (to go, to march) provides Anatolian attestation, confirming the root's PIE status. Lithuanian eĩti (to go) and Old Church Slavonic iti (to go) extend the attestation across the full IE range.
The metaphorical equation of life with a journey — embedded in English expressions like "life's path," "a crossroads," "the road ahead," and "passing away" (dying as departing) — finds its deepest linguistic root here: *h₃ey- is the verb for going, and *h₃ey-mn̥- is the trace it leaves behind. Every path is a record of prior movement.