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[OE] Full and its verbal derivative fill go back ultimately to the Indo-European base *plē-, which also produced Latin plēnus ‘full’ (source of English plenary, plenty, and replenish, and of French plein and Italian pieno ‘full’) and English complete, deplete [19] (literally ‘unfill, empty’), implement, plebeian, plethora, plural, plus, replete [14], supply, and surplus [14]. The Indo- European derivative *plnós passed into prehistoric Germanic as *fulnaz, which eventually became *fullaz, source of German voll, Dutch vol, and Swedish and English full. Fulfil dates from the late Old English period; it originally meant literally ‘fill full, fill up’.
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