kremH-
“to burn, smolder”Source of Latin cremāre, English cremate
Root for burning, yielding Latin cremāre and English cremate, cremation.
Discussion
The PIE root *kremH- (to burn, to smolder, to reduce to ash by fire) produced the vocabulary of cremation and slow combustion — fire not as sudden conflagration but as the patient process of consuming matter to its mineral residue.
Latin cremāre (to burn, to reduce to ashes) continues the root directly and gave English: cremate (to burn a corpse to ashes), cremation (the process), and crematorium (the facility). The practice of cremation has deep IE roots — both the Vedic agnicayana (fire-altar ritual) and the Homeric funeral pyres of Patroclus and Hector describe the burning of the noble dead, and the PIE vocabulary confirms that the practice predates the separation of the branches.
The related Latin word carbō (charcoal — the product of incomplete burning) may be connected to a related root, giving English carbon and the entire vocabulary of organic chemistry.
Old English hrēam ("a cry" — possibly from the crackling of fire, though this is debated) and the Lithuanian kremtì ("to gnaw, to crumble" — the slow destruction that fire and gnawing share) provide further reflexes.
The root's semantic focus on slow, thorough burning distinguishes it from *dʰeǵʰ- (to burn quickly, to kindle) and *péh₂wr̥ (fire as a substance). Where *péh₂wr̥ names the element and *dʰeǵʰ- names the flash of ignition, *kremH- names the endgame: the patient reduction of matter to its irreducible mineral core. Cremation is not destruction but transformation — the body becomes ash, and the ash becomes earth.