Words related to *segh-
The use of the word by the Greek physicians apparently was from the notion of a fever rooted in the constitution of the body and symptomatic of one's physical condition, or else from its continuousness (compare ephemera). Hectic fevers are characterized by rapid pulse, flushed cheeks, hot skin, emaciation. In English applied particularly to the wasting fevers, rising and falling with the hours of the day, characteristic of tuberculosis.
Sense of "feverishly exciting, full of disorganized activity" is from 1904 and was a vogue word at first, according to Fowler, but hectic also was used in Middle English as a noun meaning "feverish desire, consuming passion" (early 15c.). Related: Hecticness.
ancient constellation (representing Aesculapius), 1650s, from Latin, from Greek ophioukhos, literally "holding a serpent," from ophis "serpent" (see ophio-) + stem of ekhein "to hold, have, keep" (from PIE root *segh- "to hold").
Translated in Latin as Anguitenens and Serpentarius. Milton's "Ophiuchus huge in th' Arctick Sky" ("Paradise Lost") is a rare (minor) lapse for a poet who generally knew his astronomy; the constellation actually straddles the celestial equator, and, as its modern boundaries are drawn, dips into the zodiac: The sun passes through Ophiuchus from about Nov. 30 to Dec. 18. The serpent now is treated as a separate constellation.
"to persist in what one has undertaken, to pursue steadily a design or course," late 14c., perseveren, from Old French perseverer "continue, persevere, endure" and directly from Latin perseverare "continue steadfastly, persist," from persevereus "very strict, earnest," from per "very" (see per) + severus "serious, grave, strict, austere," which is probably from PIE root *segh- "to have, hold," on the notion of "steadfastness, toughness." Related: Persevered; persevering.
plural schemata, 1796, in Kantian philosophy ("a product of the imagination intermediary between an image and a concept"), from Greek skhēma "figure, appearance, the nature of a thing," which is related to skhein "to get," and ekhein "to have, hold; be in a given state or condition" (from PIE root *segh- "to hold"). The meaning "diagrammatic representation" is from 1890; the general sense of "hypothetical outline" is by 1939.
