The root word cis and its variants cid and -cide come from a Latin root which means ‘cut’ or ‘kill.’ A decision, for instance, is a ‘cutting off’ of all possibilities except for one; if you are decisive you have ‘killed’ all other options. And scissors? They just ‘cut.’
Ever had an incision during surgery? That’s nothing but a ‘cutting into’ your body. On the other hand, if you excise text from a book, you are removing or ‘cutting out’ material from it.
Many words in English also come from the root cid that is a variant of cis and disturbingly enough means ‘to kill.’ Cid typically appears in the form of the suffix -cide. Let’s take a look at just some of the English words that have this chilling suffix.
Homicide means ‘killing a human,’ fratricide is ‘killing of a brother.’
Herbicides and pesticides are chemicals that are commonly used for ‘killing plants,’ and a hippopotomonstricide is the ‘killing of a giant hippopotamus.’
The legendary ‘Julius Caesar’ also shares this Latin root. The word part Caes in Caesar is believed to be a reference to Mr. Julius being cut from his mother’s womb, the first recorded cesarean section.
We could go on and on, but in the spirit of conciseness we will ‘thoroughly cut’ any more words from this discussion and leave you with this incisive summary: When you see a cis or cid, tread carefully or sooner or later you just might just get ‘cut’ down to size!
- Decision: a ‘cutting off’
- Decisive: ‘of a cutting off’
- Homicide: ‘killing of a human’
- Fratricide: ‘killing of a brother’
- Herbicide: ‘killing of a plant’
- Caesar: ‘cut’ from his mother’s womb
- Concise: ‘thoroughly cut’
- Incisive: ‘cut into’