Gr.τέρχνος/τρέχνος - lat. turgere.

A fully persuasive etymology of the rare Greek word τέρχνος / τρέχνος ‘twig, young shoot’ has not been proposed so far. It has been argued that it could be referred to the root of τρέχειν ‘to run’, analogously to ἔρνος - ὄρνυμι. According to other scholars it could be related to the albeit obscure ταρχύειν ‘to bury solemnly’ suggested by the Hesychian gloss ἐντάφια, to the ie. root *dheregh, highly productive in the botanical lexicon of several languages, or to a pre-Greek substrate. The present article suggests to relate it, alongside the Latin synonym termes, to the same root of the verb turgere ‘to swell out’, often indicating the flush of vegetation.