teks-
“to fashion, to weave”construct, fabricate, weave
Root for constructing, yielding Latin texere (to weave), Greek tekton (builder), Sanskrit taksan-.
Discussion
The PIE root *teks- (to weave, to fabricate, to construct by fitting together) is the verbal base from which the derivative *teks-tro- (woven thing, text/textile) was formed. The root itself carried both the concrete sense of interlacing threads on a loom and the abstract sense of constructing something complex from simple elements.
Latin texere (to weave) continues the root directly: text (textus, "woven fabric" → "woven discourse"), textile (woven material), texture (the quality of a woven surface), context (con-textus, "woven together" — the surrounding fabric of meaning), pretext (prae-textus, "woven in front" — a covering story), and subtle (sub-tīlis, "finely woven beneath" — delicate, barely perceptible).
Greek téktōn (τέκτων, "carpenter, builder") shifted the root from weaving to woodworking — both activities of constructing complex things from simple parts. From téktōn: architect (arkhi-tektōn, "chief builder"), tectonic (pertaining to building — plate tectonics names the earth's structural construction), and technology (tekhnē + logos — tekhnē from *teks-neh₂, "the craft of weaving/building").
Sanskrit tákṣan- (carpenter, fashioner) preserves the Indo-Iranian reflex with the builder sense, as in Greek.
Old English þeax (roof, thatch — that which is woven or layered over a building) and the related þeccan (to cover) continue the Germanic reflexes. English thatch descends from this line.
The root's conceptual core — fitting parts together to make a whole — is what unites the weaver, the carpenter, the architect, and the technologist. All are *teks-workers, fabricators who construct complex structures from simple elements according to a plan. The PIE speakers who named this activity gave their descendants the vocabulary for everything from cloth to buildings to written discourse to digital technology.
Notes
Pokorny 1058. English text, textile, texture, architect, technology.