The oldest names for ‘slave’ in Indo-European languages are connected with the notions ‘captive’, ‘prisoner’, ‘tied’. Taking into consideration this typology we can assume that Lat. servus ‘servant, slave’ might go back to PIE *ser- ‘to tie, to bind’. PIE *or-bho-s, to which Proto-Slav. *orbъ ‘slave, child, orphan’ goes back, may have been formed from *er-/or- ‘to cut, to separate’ > ‘orphan’. The Proto-Slav. word *sirota ‘orphan’ may also have been formed after this pattern.
A hypothesis has been proposed stating that the Germanic words with the meaning ‘milk’ and ‘to milk’ go back to IE root *mel- ‘to crush, to squash’, ‘to spread, to smear’. This root could have generated two semantic derivatives, namely, ‘to spill; wet, moist’ and ‘to rub, to stroke’ to which the meanings ‘milk’ and ‘to milk’ go back. The Germanic *mel-uk- ‘milk’ might be a compound word, the second component o which *au eg-/ug- has the meaning ‘to increase, to add’.
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