leyp-₂
“to smear, stick, be fat”Source of English live, life, liver, lip
Root meaning to be sticky or fatty, producing English live, life, liver (the fatty organ).
Discussion
The root *leyp- in its second ablaut variant encodes a cluster of meanings — "to smear, to stick, to be fat, to be greasy" — that cohere around the tactile experience of viscous, adhesive substances. Pokorny (IEW 670–671) documents this root extensively, and its reflexes touch the body, the kitchen, and the written page with equal facility.The most intimate descendant is English lip, from Old English lippa, ultimately from a PIE form meaning "that which is smeared" or "the sticky, fleshy part" — lips being, in the proto-speakers' observation, the part of the face that glistens with moisture and grease after eating. The connection between stickiness and the labial anatomy is preserved independently in several branches. English liver descends from the same root through a different semantic path: the liver is the "fat organ," the visceral mass richest in lipids, named for its greasy, heavy texture. Old English lifer and its Germanic cognates all point back to *leyp- through this association.The learned vocabulary is equally productive. Greek lipos "fat, grease" — borrowed into scientific Latin and thence into English as lipid, lipase, lipoprotein, and the entire terminology of fat biochemistry — descends directly from the o-grade or zero-grade of *leyp-. Beekes (EDG, s.v. λίπος) confirms the derivation. The verb form leipō "to leave behind, to remain" may also connect through the sense of residue — the greasy film that remains, that sticks and persists.Watkins (AHDIER, s.v. *leip-) groups these forms under a single entry, emphasizing the root's corporeal quality. *leyp- names the world as the hand encounters it: sticky, fatty, clinging. From the grease on a lip to the lipid bilayer of a cell membrane, the root's semantic range has proven remarkably durable.