Berate, however, is from the English be- tagged on to the obsolete verb to rate, meaning to scold, akin to the Swedish rata, to upbraid.

Ultimately it's all Indo-European, closely akin to Sanskrit and most European language families.

Almost all nouns in English that end in -ate are created from the 4th principal part of the Latin verb, which is the perfect passive participle (translated "having been ...ed") or the future active participle (translated "about to ..."). The final -us or -urus ending is dropped and a silent -e is added. The meaning is still "having been ...ed"  so the 4th principal part of the verb "to free" is liberatus, having been freed"  so the word "liberate" translates as "freed" or eventually "free." Similarly, the verb "to name, to call by name" has as its 4th principal part nominatus, having been named, so the word "nominate" translates a "having been named" or "named." The -or ending on English words comes from the same source, and often means "one who..." or "the thing which..." (i.e. does the action of the original verb). Thus the "nominator" is the person who names. The liberator is the person who frees. The prefix de-  can either be used as simply an intensifier or can mean "down from" the original. So the numerator is the name and the denominator is down or below the name, so so I guess. The original question, about the -ate ending on English words, however, can usually be solved by looking at the root Latin word. 

Berate, however, is from the English be- tagged on to the obsolete verb to rate, meaning to scold, akin to the Swedish rata, to upbraid.

Ultimately it's all Indo-European, closely akin to Sanskrit and most European language families.

Dear Anne,

Thanks for the answer. Actually, I know about the -ate endings (this is what led me to this question) and forms part of the r->t article (Comparative r->t transformation in Latin and Malayalam) which I had mentioned to you and you promised to give the feedback.

Now I can understand it as you explained if deliberate (as used in deliberate action) was the opposite/intensifier of liberate; but it is not. Liberate,/liberation it appears to me, has no relation to deliberate/deliberation. How to explain this?

In the case of nomination and denomination, they appear to have the same meaning, or is there any intensification?

Narayanan

Hi Chris

Thanks for the answer. Yes, berate means scold on and on and on. So liberate has some link: Can I say that when berating is stopped, it is to liberate. But then it means that Li- is a prefix that gives a sort of contradictory meaning. Or could liberate be related to libra (balance)? Then to liberate means that when the berating' is stopped, a balance is reached. But then the doubt remains what is the meaningful relationship with deliberate.

Narayanan

Narayanan,

In contemporary English, there is no semantic link among berate, liberate, and deliberate. They just sort of look alike, but have no linked meanings of any kind. As a separate matter, their etymologies have no semantic link either, not that that would govern their uses now.

deliberate > de+ librare ~ intensifier+to weigh (Latin)

liberate > liberare ~ to set free (Latin)

berate > be+rate (English, as Ransford contributed above)

*Webster's New World Dictionary, College Edition. 1962 [The one grandmom gave me when I went away to college ;-)]

Thank you Glenn.

Yes, you weigh the pros and cons when you deliberate. Since berate is be+rate, as Chris says, then there could be a link in rate: you rate something after you deliberate well. This is possible? If so deliberate, librate and berate are linked. Then two questions remain: 1. how did berate get its negative meaning, and 2. the link with liberate. Could it that liberation (eg. getting peace of mind), in a broad sense, is only possible after deliberate thinking.

Narayanan

Narayanan,

"Librate," not a word in common usage, has the same etymology as deliberate. It means to oscillate or go back and forth as a weight on a balance. "Abrate" is not a word, as far as I can tell. If you are looking for the verb form for "abrasion," that is "abrade." It comes from ab+radere ~away+scrape (Latin). I don't think there is a word "delibrate," but "deliberate" might be interpreted as the metaphorical or abstract intensified version of "librate." "Celebrare" in Latin (go in great numbers) had its meaning narrowed for English. The English meaning for "celebrate" does not entail that there is a crowd, but it does entail that it is done in response to some positive action or state. WNWD

Nominator/denominator have the same history with the Latin (not English) intensifier prefix distinguishing them. . In the case of a denominator, it names the type fraction (halves, thirds, 217ths). Again, the usage in Latin has no control over how the words are used in English. The first goes with naming people to fill a position and the intensified form is used mainly with numbers or in an abstract way to sort out causes/features/traits. Eating ice cream was the common denominator.

Dear Glen. Yeah, qualities can be a common denominator.

Let us take one thousand lack-lustre objects of varying blackness,none of them shining. If we select one of them, it will be 1 among thousand objects, and it can be written as 1/1000, with a denominator of 1000; ie its denomination now is 1 out of 1000. Now suppose this object is made slowly more and more lustrous; as it becomes so, the denominator slowly decreases. Finally it becomes more lustrous than any others; the one that outshines all others and the only one that has a shining equal to it, thus 1 becoming the denominator; none others are its equal. (Or since it has no equal, its denomination is truly an infinite value (1/0 is infinite)). It is unsurpassed by any, and truly becomes nominated as the ‘Unique One’. This was what happened to Buddha, Jesus or any such Chosen Ones.

Will you mostly agree with the above. Where have I gone wrong? If you agree, I am likely to ask more such questions.

Narayanan

Mathematically, I would say that when a unique member of a set is found--the only one--the denominator would be 1, so 1 of 1. Your explanation that it then becomes nominated (named to fill a certain position) demonstrates that there is a difference in the usage of the two terms in English--the first used for numbers, the other for the proclamation. I don't think the narrative example accomplishes more than that.

True. But here the mathematical denominator, 1, is the same person as the numerator, ie the the other 999 are out. That is the denominator is also the person who has been nominated as the only one of a kind. So, in essence, in this case denominator=nominated (not only numerator; numerator being reserved for mathematics). linguistically/grammatically, the de- (in denominator) intensifies the word nominator. If there are a 1000 like him, he will be just a numerator, and not a nominator.

I think this is link between the meanings of nominator and de-nominator/denominator

Narayanan