whip, lash, scourge (multi-tailed whip, especially when used by flagellants for mortification of the sinful flesh) · lash (stroke with a whip) · spanking, licking, thrashing (severe beating)
köken: From Middle Dutch gêssle, gêsele. The atypical -s-, rather than -z-, points at Old Dutch *gēsl(a), where the -s- was directly followed by the -l-, instead of by a vowel, blocking the s → z sound change, from Proto-Germanic *gaisilaz, from *gaizaz (“spear”) + *-ilaz (suffix deriving names of tools). The loss of the middle syllable was a common change among the Germanic languages, and can also be…
disease, plague, pestilence, infection · a pest · destruction, ruin, death
çekim: çoğul pestēs · tamlayan pestium
zıt: salūs, valētūdō
köken: Of uncertain origin. Equated with a supposed second element of Younger Avestan 𐬐𐬀𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬙𐬌𐬱 (kapastiš), the name of an illness, which beside ka-pastiš has its morphological boundaries also rendered kap-astiš and been identified with Persian کبست (kabast, “colocynth; deadly poison”), with seemingly the suffix as Persian دهمست (dahmast, “laurel”) if not اسپست (aspest, “lucerne”).
From Middle High German geisel(e), from Old High German geisila (“whip”). Cognate with Dutch gesel. The spelling with -ß- reflects sporadic devoicing; compare the frequent pronunciations of niesen or Preiselbeere. Its use for distinguishing between Geißel and Geisel (“hostage”) is an arbitrary convention, which fully established itself only around 1900. (The two words are not related but became…