kʷel-
“to turn, to move around, to cultivate”cultivate
Root meaning to turn or move in a cycle. Gives Latin colere "to cultivate", English "colony", "culture", "cycle", "wheel".
Discussion
The root *kʷel- ("to turn, to move around, to cultivate") is one of the most semantically diverse PIE roots, treated extensively in Pokorny (IEW 639–640) and LIV² (s.v. *kʷelh₁-, with some scholars positing a final laryngeal). The core meaning is circular motion, from which radiate senses of habitation, cultivation, and completion.
Greek pólos (πόλος, "axis, pivot") and télos (τέλος, "end, completion, goal") both derive from this root. The verb pélō (πέλω, "I am in motion, I become") preserves the basic kinetic meaning. The combining form -pole appears in metropolis and acropolis (via pólis, though the connection of pólis to *kʷel- is debated).
Latin colere ("to cultivate, to tend, to inhabit, to worship") is the richest reflex. From its various senses come: culture and cultivate (from the agricultural sense); colony (from colōnus, "farmer, settler"); cult and occult (from the worship sense); and cycle (via Greek kúklos, "circle," from a reduplicated *kʷe-kʷl-o-). The noun collum ("neck," the turning part) may also belong here. The word wheel comes from Old English hwēol, from Proto-Germanic *hwehwlą, from the same reduplicated form *kʷe-kʷl-o- that gives Greek kúklos.
Sanskrit cárati ("moves, wanders") and cakrá- ("wheel, circle") preserve the root in Indo-Iranian, the latter from the same reduplicated formation as wheel and cycle—a striking three-way correspondence.
In Germanic, Old English hwēol ("wheel") and the verb hweorfan ("to turn") continue the root. The semantic journey from turning to dwelling to cultivating to worshipping reflects a deep cultural logic: to inhabit a place is to circle back to it, to cultivate it is to tend it in recurring cycles, and to worship is to attend to the divine with ritual regularity.
Notes
Extremely productive root; also "telos" path from Greek