seek: [OE] Seek has several Germanic relatives – German suchen, Swedish söka, Danish søge, etc – which point back to a prehistoric Germanic ancestor *sōkjan. The base from which this was derived, *sōk-, went back to an Indo-European *sāg-, which also produced (via Latin) English presage [14] and sagacious [17]. If Old English sēcan had developed in the ordinary way, it would have become modern English seech, not seek. For various reasons it did not, but we can see how it would have been in its derivative beseech [12]. => beseech, presage, sagacious, sake
seek (v.)
Old English secan "inquire, search for; pursue; long for, wish for, desire; look for, expect from," influenced by Old Norse soekja, both from Proto-Germanic *sokjan (cognates: Old Saxon sokian, Old Frisian seka, Middle Dutch soekan, Old High German suohhan, German suchen, Gothic sokjan), from PIE *sag-yo-, from root *sag- "to track down, seek out" (cognates: Latin sagire "to perceive quickly or keenly," sagus "presaging, predicting," Old Irish saigim "seek"). The natural modern form of the Anglo-Saxon word as uninfluenced by Norse is in beseech. Related: Sought; seeking.
