Words With The Root Duc

Side by side in a series of posts exploring some of the 'roots' and 'routes' of English vocabulary.

Another productive Latin source of English vocabulary is the verb ducere ('atomic number 82') and its past participle stem duct-. A duke, for example (related words: ducal, duchess, duchy, dukedom), was originally a kind of 'leader'.

Some 'duct' words share the basic idea of channelling, or 'leading', fluids in a detail direction – eastward.grand. duct , aqueduct, conduit; viaduct is modelled on aqueduct. A conduit can also be a tube through which electrical wires pass – not surprisingly, since we talk about an electric 'current', as if electricity was a fluid; similarly, a conductor is, among other things, a substance through which electricity can exist 'led', or can menses.

Another sense of conductor is the person who 'leads' or directs the performance of an orchestra or choir. (An orchestra also has a 'leader', the principal kickoff violinist.)

To produce was originally to 'lead forrard' and thus to bring into view, and it still retains this significant along with its now more common metaphorical sense of making or creating something.

Deduce and deduct originally shared the sense of 'leading downward' or 'leading away', just their meanings have diverged.

To introduce is to 'pb in', and the substantive 'lead-in' is a synonym of some senses of introduction.

The verb educate contains the original significant of 'leading along', and this etymology is sometimes adduced in support of the argument that the purpose of education should exist to enable children's innate abilities to emerge and develop. Unfortunately, nonetheless, it doesn't actually provide very convincing back up, since the current meanings of words take often wandered a long mode from their original meanings. It would be equally possible to deduce, on etymological grounds, that a school should exist a place of leisure!

It might exist supposed that reduce would mean 'atomic number 82 back', and indeed it did once, but it has left this meaning behind, and its etymology provides no support for its current meaning. Fortunately that doesn't matter, because you know the word reduce anyway. If you lot don't know the discussion subduction, though, awareness that sub+duct means 'lead below' might be conducive to remembering that a subduction zone is a region where one tectonic plate is slowly disappearing beneath another.

Other words in this set, with their etymological senses, include:

Notice the pattern consisting of a verb formed with duce and a corresponding noun and adjective formed with duct:

deduce	deduction	deductive
induce	induction	inductive
produce	production	productive
reduce	reduction	reductive
seduce	seduction	seductive

In all these cases, the stress falls on the duce or duct.

Simply there are too exceptions and boosted forms such as the verbs ab'duct, con'duct, de'duct and in'duct, the nouns 'behave, conduc'tivity, in'ducement, 'produce and 'product and the adjective intro'ductory.

Next in this series: moon

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