kes-
“to comb, to scratch”comb, card, scratch
Root for combing/scratching, yielding Latin carrere, English hair (possibly), hatchel.
Discussion
The root *kes- carried the meaning "to comb" or "to scratch" and survives in English heckle and hackle, both descended from forms meaning "to comb" or "to tease fibers apart." The semantic development from physical combing to verbal heckling traces a vivid metaphorical path: to heckle someone is to rake them over, to pull them apart as one would tease tangled fibers. Hackle in its original sense referred to the long feathers on a rooster's neck or the comb-like tool used in flax processing, and "to raise one's hackles" preserves the image of feathers bristling like the teeth of a comb drawn through resistant material. Pokorny (585) reconstructed the root with the primary sense of combing and scratching, placing it within a cluster of PIE roots dealing with surface manipulation — scraping, scratching, cutting — that reveal a sophisticated vocabulary of craft and material processing. The root *kes- preserves evidence that the proto-language possessed detailed technical vocabulary for everyday manual arts that sustained daily life.
Notes
Pokorny 585. English card, carding (wool processing).