entry
is
/ɪz/Third-person singular present form of “be”
From Proto-Indo-European es (to be).
from PIE *es-ti- (source also of Sanskrit asti , Greek esti , Latin est , Lithuanian esti , Old Church Slavonic jesti...
from Proto-Germanic *isti (a form of Proto-Germanic *wesaną (“to be”))
from Middle English is
from Middle English is
Word Ancestry
from PIE *es-ti- (source also of Sanskrit asti , Greek esti , Latin est , Lithuanian esti , Old Church Slavonic jesti...
from Proto-Germanic *isti (a form of Proto-Germanic *wesaną (“to be”))
from Middle English is
from Middle English is
A tiny word, but it carries one of language’s oldest loads: existence itself. Its ancestor, Proto-Indo-European *es-, meant “to be,” and it survives in Latin est, Greek ἐστί, Sanskrit asti, and German ist—as if speakers across Eurasia kept passing around the same verbal spark. English once pronounced is to rhyme with “kiss,” but by the 1500s its vowel had shifted to the sound we use today. Old English also dropped the final -t found in relatives such as Latin est, leaving English with an especially compact survivor. Every time you say “it is,” you are using a word that has been quietly answering the biggest philosophical question for thousands of years: what exists?
The Story
A tiny word, but it carries one of language’s oldest loads: existence itself. Its ancestor, Proto-Indo-European *es-, meant “to be,” and it survives in Latin est, Greek ἐστί, Sanskrit asti, and German ist—as if speakers across Eurasia kept passing around the same verbal spark. English once pronounced is to rhyme with “kiss,” but by the 1500s its vowel had shifted to the sound we use today. Old English also dropped the final -t found in relatives such as Latin est, leaving English with an especially compact survivor. Every time you say “it is,” you are using a word that has been quietly answering the biggest philosophical question for thousands of years: what exists?
Modern Usage
Used tautologically or humorously in phrases such as “is is,” and as an intentionally ungrammatical social-media status opener.
Notable References
- Urban Dictionary entries for “IS is IS” and status-update usage
Kin & Kindred
From 'es'·to be, exist
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Urban Dictionary
Wiktionary