This root carries the oldest charge in the Bible: the name Israel (יִשְׂרָאֵל) means "he strives with God", from the archaic לשרות, to wrestle, to contend. The same letters also mean to soak something until it is steeped through, and to rest upon a place. Modern Hebrew keeps the soaking sense alive (שָׁרוּי, soaked / marinated) and the dwelling sense too: to be שָׁרוּי in a state is to be steeped in it. From "rest upon" comes even מִשְׂרָה, the position or office one is set into. Every word here is verified against pealim, niqqud included.
The same root runs through the verb system. Each binyan is a voice: it bends the one idea into active, passive, causative or reciprocal. Tap to hear.
Two pa'al verbs sit side by side with a telling spelling split: לִשְׁרוֹת with שׁ (shin) is the everyday "to soak", while לִשְׂרוֹת with שׂ (sin) is the archaic "to wrestle / to rest upon" that gives Israel its name. The hif'il לְהַשְׁרוֹת is causative: make something soak, or cause a mood to settle over a room. Nif'al, pi'el, pu'al, hitpa'el and huf'al are not lexicalized for this root.
Same root letters, different noun moulds (mishkalim). The mould tells you the function: who does it, the act of doing it, or the thing produced.
Strip the prefixes, suffixes and vowels. Three consonants remain, and the meaning lives there.