Learn English – Why is it “behead” and not “dehead”

etymologyprefixesword-choice

The be- prefix in behead doesn't seem to match similar words like become, besmirch, or befuddle. Of course, the same prefix could serve different roles depending on the word. What role is be- serving here, and are there any other English words that use the prefix in this way?

Best Answer

We didn’t use de-head be­cause we al­ready had a verb be­head by the time we start­ed us­ing de- to cre­ate verbs: be­head was a verb in Old English, be­héaf­di­an.

So be­head was al­ready used long be­fore the de- pri­va­tive pre­fix came to be used pro­duc­tive­ly in English. That didn’t hap­pen un­til Modern English with a few pro­duc­tive ex­am­ples in the 17ᵗʰ cen­tu­ry but most com­ing from the 19ᵗʰ cen­tu­ry or af­ter. As Ja­nus men­tions in com­ments, the de- word mean­ing the same thing, de­cap­i­tate, was im­port­ed in full with the de- al­ready there, from Latin via French, in the 17ᵗʰ cen­tu­ry.

There are many dif­fer­ent pos­si­ble sens­es of be- in verbs; the OED lists six dif­fer­ent pri­ma­ry sens­es with sub­sens­es. This here in be­head is one of the rar­er ones. Un­der be- sense 6c, it says that this pri­va­tive sense of be- used to cre­ate be­head is an an­cient sense that means be­reave of:

  1. Form­ing trans. verbs on sub­stan­tives used in an in­stru­men­tal re­la­tion; the pri­ma­ry idea be­ing;

    • a. To sur­round, cov­er, or be­daub with, as in be­cloud, to put clouds about, cov­er with clouds, be­dew. Thence, by ex­ten­sion,
    • b. To af­fect with in any way, as in be­night, be­guile, be­friend. In both sets there is of­ten an ac­com­pa­ny­ing no­tion of ‘thor­ough­ly, ex­ces­sive­ly,’ as in 2.
    • c. An an­cient ap­pli­ca­tion, no longer in liv­ing use, was to ex­press the sense of ‘be­reave of,’ as in be­head, be­limb, etc., q.v. Cf. 3, above.

Al­though 6a and 6b are still pro­duc­tive, 6c no longer is so in the liv­ing lan­guage. Another Old English verb formed us­ing 6c was belandian, mean­ing to de­prive of one’s land. How­ev­er, this verb did not sur­vive in­to Modern English.

El destierro

Apro­pos de na­da, the Span­ish equiv­a­lent of the ob­so­lete verb be­land still very much ex­ists in the verb des­te­rrar, which com­bines the pri­va­tive des‑ pre­fix with the noun tie­rra mean­ing land then puts that in­to an in­fini­tive verb form. This is nor­mal­ly trans­lat­ed as “ex­ile” in English, but some­time as “ex­pel” or as a noun “ex­pul­sion”. There is al­so a sub­stan­tive ver­sion, destier­ro, is fa­mous­ly found in “Can­tar del des­tie­rro”, which is the ti­tle of the first can­to from that most an­cient of Cas­til­ian epic po­ems, El Can­tar de Mio Cid.

Tru­ly, el Cid was be­land­ed of his lands by the King.

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