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>Heb. *kat*, of course is the sameword as mishnaic *kat* meaning class or
>division. Like sect in Latin it comes from a word meaning to divide or
>cut (pure coincidence that cut and *kat* sound the same, though!).< [JRW]<
>> What word for "divide" or "cut" do you think "kat" comes from? KTT isn't
so much "cut" as "to crush by beating."< [Seth Sanders] <<
Seth is correct, I should have said "break up" rather than "cut up", I was
speaking too loosely. Crushing into pieces is the ultimate way of segmentizing,
I suppose -- which was the point at issue, of course.
>>An etymology that I have not seen proposed is as a loan from Akkadian
kintu "family" (written both "kintu" and "kimtu" but probably expressing
only /kintu/;<< [Seth]
If you haven't seen that proposed it's probably because k-t-t (pl., k-n-t) in
Accadian means "truth" in the sense of "established cosmic fact." (See my
article on kittum and misharum, especially the connection between kittum
and BH nakon, konen, from the root k-w-n, to establish. (Ask privately for the
details if you're interested -- I'm only replying here on list because you
queried my etymologies on list; it's probably not for Orion, anyhow!)
>>Hm. I had thought that "sect" and "section" had different sources (a sect
was a group "following" a certain way of life, from sequi "follow") but
I'm hardly an indo-europeanist. << [Seth]
Actually, the supine of sequi is not sectum but secutum (which shows up in
words like persecute), so I think you are not correct about sect coming from
sequi. Sectus is the pp. of secare, to cut or saw.
As for whether section comes from a different source than sect, I don't
think so, for the same reason.
Judith Romney Wegner