Origins
The word 'comment' refers to a remark, observation, or annotation — a verbal or written expression of opinion or explanation. It entered English in the late fourteenth century from Old French 'comment' (commentary, explanation), which derived from Late Latin 'commentum' (interpretation, annotation), the neuter past participle of 'comminīscī' (to contrive, to devise, to think up).
The Latin verb 'comminīscī' is a compound of the intensive prefix 'com-' and a root derived from PIE *men- (to think). This makes 'comment' a distant cousin of 'mind,' 'mental,' 'memory,' 'mention,' 'remind,' and 'mnemonic' — all tracing back to the same Proto-Indo-European concept of thinking. The literal meaning of 'commentum' was 'something thought up,' which in Latin had a double edge: it could mean either a thoughtful interpretation or a fabrication, an invention. The English word 'comment' retained the interpretive sense while losing the pejorative one.
The related Latin noun 'commentārius' (a notebook, a record of proceedings, a set of notes) is the source of English 'commentary.' In Roman usage, 'commentāriī' were official records or personal memoranda — documents meant to preserve thoughts for later use. The most famous example is Julius Caesar's 'Commentāriī dē Bellō Gallicō' (Commentaries on the Gallic War), written in the 50s BCE. Caesar's choice of the title 'commentāriī' was a strategic act of false modesty: the word implied his account was merely raw notes or a memoir, not a finished literary history, even though the work was in fact a masterpiece of clear prose and political self-promotion.
Latin Roots
The word 'commentator' (one who comments, an interpreter) also traces to this Latin family. In the medieval period, commentators were scholars who wrote explanatory notes on classical and biblical texts. The great tradition of commentary — the 'gloss' or 'scholium' — was central to medieval education, and 'commentator' carried high intellectual prestige. The Arabic philosopher Averroës (Ibn Rushd) was known in medieval Europe simply as 'The Commentator' for his extensive annotations on Aristotle.
In English, 'comment' first appeared in the context of textual interpretation — explaining or annotating a passage of scripture, law, or classical literature. The broader sense of 'a remark or observation on any subject' developed by the sixteenth century. The verb 'to comment' (to make remarks, to provide interpretation) appeared around the same time.
The closely related word 'mention' also derives from PIE *men- through a different Latin path. 'Mention' comes from Latin 'mentiō' (a calling to mind, a speaking of), from the same root. Thus 'comment' and 'mention' are etymological siblings, both meaning, at their deepest level, 'an act of thinking brought into words.'
Proto-Indo-European Roots
Another relative is 'memento' (a thing that is a reminder), from Latin 'mementō' (remember!), the imperative of 'meminisse' (to remember), also from *men-. The connection between 'comment' and 'memento' — between 'something thought up' and 'something that causes one to remember' — illustrates the rich semantic range that a single PIE root could generate.
In the digital age, 'comment' has acquired new life and new meanings. Comment sections on websites, comment threads on social media, and code comments in programming all extend the word's ancient meaning of 'annotation' or 'remark' into new technological contexts. A programmer's comment — text in source code meant to explain functionality to human readers but ignored by the compiler — is remarkably close to the medieval commentator's gloss: an interpretive note added to a primary text to aid understanding.
The word has also developed evaluative force. 'No comment' — the refusal to comment — became a standard phrase of political and legal evasion in the twentieth century. 'That's quite a comment' can express either admiration or criticism. The phrase 'comment on' implies judgment and analysis, not mere description. Through all these uses, the word retains its fundamental connection to the act of thinking — a 'comment' remains, at root, a thought made audible or visible.