Verbs with ‘port’ root

Verbs with 'port' root Transporting his marker and seeing it was imported from China, James from engVid realizes there’s something common in the verbs…

English is quite complex in its origin. It has Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) roots, French (Norman) borrowings and Latin (Greek) terms. But the good news is we can understand 1/3 of English lexis by knowing 3 Latin word parts.

The 1st word part is prefix. The end part is its suffix. The rest middle is root/stem/base giving words their growth points.

One of top English roots is port (Latin for carry), around which many word forms are formed.

Transport

= trans- (change/move) + -port (carry) = carry somewhere

 

Transported

= trans- (change/move) + -port- (carry) + -ed (past) = carried somewhere

Import

 

= im- (inside) + -port (carry) = carry in

 

Export

 

= ex- (outside) + -port (carry) = carry out

 

Passport

 

= pass- + -port (carry) = carry a pass

 

Teleport

 

= tele- (far) + -port (carry) = carry somewhere magically

All of you have portable devices and without its synonym mobile you’d hardly understand its meaning. Portable is Latin.

Portable

 

= port- (carry) + -able (can) = can be carried

This way one can make out sport, important and many other English borrowings. Now Latin doesn’t seem so dead, does it? It gives keys for deciphering and translating bookish words.