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Dr Danny Bate
@dannybate.com

Acheter, meaning 'to buy', is a French verb that it gets from Latin acceptāre 'to take'. The Old Norman equivalent to acheter was acater, from which Middle English gained the position of an 'acater', an official who bought provisions. This lost its initial A in English, giving us the word 'cater'.

Dr Danny Bate
@dannybate.com

Sure thing! (And from the Germanic the Slavic, e.g. Polish kupić) They go back to Latin caupō, a kind of merchant or business owner. But what the Romans got that word from is far from clear...

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Alistair King
@alistairking.bsky.social

Came here to ask a similar question. The Swedish for 'to buy' is cognate with those: it's 'köpa', pronounced close to 'sher-pa' (the 'r' isn't voiced but I wasn't sure how to represent an 'er' sound in English using normal letters!). I always remember this as it sounds like 'shopper' - coincidence?

Zach Stewart
@virpopularis.bsky.social

This is cognate with English "cheap," right? I know there was OE "ceapian," which I assume is related to "kaufen," but it's strange to have turned into an adjective? (From which I gather the verb "cheapen" is derived in the manner of "widen," etc.)