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I was reading an article about spelling assessment, and this word came up as having "secret" inside and I started wondering if that was actually true. There is a lot of misinformation on the internet. Looks can be deceiving.
As we follow our curiosity, we’ll encounter a back-formation and explore the principal parts of a Latin verb. Along the way, we’ll see how a past participle can transform into modern English forms. A single PIE root will branch out into an array of familiar relatives. And tucked into the investigation? A surprising pair of doublets.
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Meaning
What is this word's meaning and how does the word function?
The Collins Co-Build dictionary entry states that a secretion is the process by which liquids are produced by plants or animals. We can also use the word to refer to the liquid itself.
- The secretion of the stress hormone cortisol is produced by your adrenal glands.
- Ants feed on the secretion the plant releases.
In both cases, the word is a noun that has been formed from the verb secrete.
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Structure
What are the elements that make up this word's structure?
secrete/ + ion
Is it possible to analyze the base any further? When I look at the entry for secrete in Etymonline, I see it is a back-formation of secretion. Back-formations are words that are formed by removing a perceived suffix from a word. Here, the <-ion> is removed.
The entry for secretion states that it is originally in reference to animal physiology. The word is from Latin by way of French. The root is the Latin verb secernere, "separate," and now I have further thinking about my hypothesis.
se + crete/ + ion
Before we move on from this entry, there is a direction to "see secret." I will head there next to gain further information.
In the entry for the word secret, we learn that this word too, is derived from the verb secernere. Therefore, our two words are related, and the resource I was reading was correct. The verb secernere can be analyzed further into se + cernere, so my hypothesis has evidence as well.
How does
The four principal parts of the Latin verb, according to Wiktionary, are cerno, cernere, crevi, cretum. Entries that refer to a "past participle" of a Latin verb are a clue to look at the fourth principal part.
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Relatives
What are the word's relatives and history?
This verb is familiar to me from past studies of words like sincerity. Words sharing this base could be excrete and secretary. Etymological relatives include certain, concert, and discriminate.
In Greek, the PIE root of these relatives developed into krinein, which is where hypocrite and critic come from. In Latin, we have crimen, which gives us criminal and excrement. In English, the root developed into hriddel, the source for Modern English riddle. A turn in French gives us discreet and our word, secrete.
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Graphemes
What can the pronunciation of the word teach us about the relationship of its graphemes and its phonology?
The prefix secession or security. This isn't always the case, however, as we see in the words separate and sever (which are actually doublets.)
There are several examples in English of words with similar noun and verb forms where the verb form ends in a single, final, non-syllabic breath/breathe, cloth/clothe, and grief/grieve. In our word, the addition of the
Do you have students who still think
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Next Steps
What can we learn next about the English orthographic system?
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The suffix <-ion> may be a good one to study. Is it a derivational or inflectional suffix? Does it always form nouns? |
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What other words are back-formations? |
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What other words have a noun/verb pattern like bath/bathe or proof/prove? Do you see any other patterns in these words? |
Stay curious,
Brad
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P.S. Other doublets like sever and separate include the pairing frail and fragile. Doublets are words that have made their way to English from the same root, but through different routes. The word fragile comes directly to us from the Latin fragilis. The word frail took a journey through French first.
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