Pyne

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. An archaic verb meaning to suffer, languish or waste away from grief or hardship ; an old noun for pain, torment or distress endured by a person
2. Used in older English to describe wasting away in sorrow or distress ; a term from earlier writing for suffering or agony that someone bears
3. Meaning to grieve, pine or endure torment slowly ; in past literature, a word for the affliction, anguish or misery of a sufferer

Etymology: The verb "pyne" is simply an older spelling of "pine," and the two words share a surprising pair of roots. The main line runs from Old English "pīnian," meaning "to torment," which was itself built on a noun "pīne" meaning pain or torment. Those Old English words were shaped by Christianity: the idea of torment in the afterlife entered Germanic languages with the religion, and the noun is cognate with Old High German "pīnōn" and Old Norse "pína," as well as modern German "peinigen," meaning to torture. The noun's origin is the more startling part. One theory links it to Latin "poena," meaning punishment, which came from Ancient Greek "poinē," meaning penalty or blood-money. That makes it a relative of the English word "pain," even though the two entered English by different routes. Meanwhile, the homophone "pine," the tree, comes from Latin "pinus," and the two words are doublets in the sense that they are unrelated in meaning yet share a distant ancestry.