710: elicit, illicit, and solicit Nov 17, 2016

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If you are a reader of Word Facts, you may at this point start to believe that words which sound similar are likely to be related, after all, 21 of all of the past posts contain the phrase "sound similar". Nevertheless, there are some sets of words which are misleading. It would make sense if 'elicit,' 'solicit', and 'illicit' shared a common root, but it is not the case that these words differ only from historical prefixes. While 'elicit' derives from the verb 'lacere' meaning 'attract or charm' (not to be confused with 'lacerare' which gives English, 'lacerate'), 'illicit' is derived from negating 'licere', meaning 'to be permitted'. 'Solicit', unlike the other two, does not come from affixation but instead, compounding, as the first syllable is from 'sollus' which means, 'whole', and the verb for 'to move', 'cicēre', in the sense of 'disturb'.

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