seh₂g-eyo-
“to keep seeking, tracking”saga, sake, sagacious, presage
Iterative of *seh₂g- giving Latin sagāx, English saga, sake, sagacious, presage.
Discussion
The PIE form *seh₂g-eyo- (to keep seeking, tracking) is an iterative derivative of *seh₂g- (to seek, to track, to investigate), with the *-eyo- suffix marking sustained or repeated action. The meaning is "to be in the continuous process of seeking" — investigation as an ongoing state.
Latin sāgīre (to perceive keenly, to trace) and its derivative sagāx (keen-scented, shrewd, sagacious) continue the root with the emphasis on perceptive tracking — the hunter's ability to follow a trail, extended to intellectual acuity. English sagacious (having keen judgment), sage (a wise person, from Latin sapere via a semantic convergence with sagāx), and presage (to perceive beforehand, to foretell) all carry this sense of acute, tracking perception.
The Germanic branch preserves the root in English seek (OE sēcan, from PGmc *sōkijaną), with the straightforward meaning of looking for something. German suchen (to search), Dutch zoeken, and Gothic sōkjan confirm the pan-Germanic distribution. The English legal term sake (for the sake of) derives from Old English sacu (lawsuit, cause, contention — that which one seeks or pursues at law), connecting the seeking root to legal procedure.
Old Norse saga (story, narrative — literally "a thing told/sought out," a tale recovered through investigation) is one of the most culturally significant derivatives. The Icelandic sagas were conceived as histories sought out and pieced together from oral tradition, not fictional inventions. The word saga entered English to denote any long, complex narrative — a linguistic borrowing that carries the original Norse sense of narrative as investigation.
Old Irish saigid (to seek, to attack) and Welsh haeddu (to reach, to deserve — from a sense of "seeking and attaining") provide Celtic reflexes, showing the expected semantic range from physical seeking to abstract attainment.
The Hittite form šāk(k)- (to know) provides Anatolian attestation with a significant semantic development: to seek becomes to know, the successful conclusion of the seeking process. This development parallels the Latin shift from sāgīre (to track/perceive) to sagāx (wise/shrewd) — knowledge as the result of sustained investigation.