parent word

The young students discarded what they called "parent words."

So he has no choice but to head for the city and embark upon a new life, leaving his parents word that he has been kidnapped.

For instance, attempts to sabotage a corporation may be considered industrial espionage; in this sense, the term takes on the wider connotations of its parent word.

It is the same process of dilution, Proscio notes, that has afflicted its parent words, input and output (as in "the family pet recently output on the living-room carpet").

An example is the English colonel, which is now standardly pronounced "cornel" in English as a result of dissimilation, while the parent word in French and Italian is pronounced "colonel".