teks-neh₂
“skill in weaving, craftsmanship”technique, technology, architect
Abstract from *teks- giving Greek tekhnē, English technique, technology, architect.
Discussion
The PIE form *teks-neh₂ (craft, the skill of weaving/fabricating) is a feminine abstract noun from *teks- (to weave, to fashion), formed with the suffix *-neh₂ that creates nouns of quality or activity. The meaning is "the art of construction" — craftsmanship as a body of knowledge.
Greek téchnē (τέχνη, "art, skill, craft, method") is the direct continuation and one of the most culturally consequential words in Western civilisation. From téchnē and its derivatives English inherits: technique (a particular method of crafting), technical (pertaining to craft/skill), technology (téchnē + lógos — the systematic study of craft), and polytechnic (many-skilled). The word technology, coined in the 17th century, has become perhaps the most consequential derivation of any PIE root in modern global discourse.
The Greek distinction between téchnē (craft, applied knowledge) and epistḗmē (theoretical knowledge) structured Western philosophy of knowledge from Aristotle through the medieval trivium and quadrivium to the modern separation of engineering (téchnē) from science (epistḗmē). This distinction is encoded in the PIE vocabulary: *teks- is about making and building, not about knowing abstractly.
Latin texere (to weave) preserves the root without the *-neh₂ suffix, generating the textile/text family through a different derivational path.
The word's modern dominance is remarkable: technology, tech, high-tech, biotech, fintech — the PIE weaving-craft root has become the defining label of 21st-century civilisation. When we speak of the "tech industry" we invoke, six thousand years on, the PIE concept of skilled fabrication.