Let's take a look at the Hebrew root עקר. As a verb, in the kal form it means "to uproot, extract, displace" and in the piel form means "to neuter, spay, sterilize." The adjective עקר akar, or in the feminine akara עקרה means "infertile, barren." And the noun ikar (spelled either עִקָּר or עיקר) means "essence, main thing/part, gist", with the associated adjective ikari עיקרי meaning "essential, fundamental, major" and the related ikaron עקרון - "principle" and ekroni עקרוני - "of principle, basic."

What is the connection between these various meanings?

They all derive from the sense of "root." That is the original meaning of ikar. That sense isn't found in Biblical Hebrew (although a related word, eker - "offshoot", appears in Vayikra 25:47), but is common in Aramaic, and can be found as such in the Aramaic sections of Daniel (4:12,20,23). Those verses all have the phrase עִקַּר שׇׁרְשׁוֹהִי, which is generally translated as "the stump with its roots." But since both words mean root in Aramaic, perhaps a more precise translation would be "root of the roots" or "the main root." From Aramaic, ikar entered rabbinic Hebrew, where it has the literal meaning of root (for example in Mishna Maasrot 3:10) and the more metaphorical sense of the "important thing" (as in Mishna Avot 1:17).

English relates to the word "root" similarly, with it also having the meaning "the cause, source or origin of something."

In the previous post on teruah, we mentioned that while teruah refers to the short blasts (of the trumpet or shofar) and tekiah תקיעה refers to the long blasts, the verb taka תקע simply means "blowing on an instrument" (regardless of the length of the blasts). Klein writes that the verb fully means "to thrust, clap, give a blow, blast", and he point out that the sense development is similar to the German stossen - "to thrust, to give a blast, blow" and das Horn stossen - "to blow the horn". Ben Yehuda writes that perhaps the origin of the root comes from the sound of the tekiah.

Kaddari writes that the biblical meanings of the root include: a) to strike - with hands to clap, or to shake hands (to guarantee), b) to drive in - with a sword (e.g. Shoftim 3:21), with a peg (Shoftim 16:14, Yeshaya 22:23), or a tent (Bereshit 31:25), c) to thrust - in regards to wind (Shemot 10:19), and of course d) to blow on an instrument. He quotes the linguist Eliezer Rubinstein from an article in this book as saying that the basic meaning of the Biblical root תקע is "to cause an object to change its location". This is interesting, because in Modern Hebrew it refers to something much more permanent, as seen by the related words takua תקוע - "stuck" and teka תקע - "(electrical) plug".

Steinberg, and many others say that the Biblical town of Tekoa (not far from my home in Efrat) originally meant "place of setting up a tent". This also inspired the founders of the city of Tekoa, Washington. On the town's website they explain how in 1884: