'Data' is Latin for 'things given' — cousin of 'date,' 'donate,' 'dose,' and 'tradition.'
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From Latin 'data,' the neuter plural of 'datum' (something given, a gift, a premise), the past participle of 'dare' (to give), from PIE *deh₃- (to give). The same root produced Latin 'dōnum' (a gift), 'dōnāre' (to give as a gift — whence 'donate' and 'donor'), 'dōs, dōtis' (a dowry), Greek 'dōron' (δῶρον, a gift — whence 'Theodore,' gift of god, and 'Dorothy'), Greek 'didōmi' (to give), and Sanskrit 'dadāti' (he gives). Data were originally 'things given' — the known premises from which an argument proceeded. In Euclidean geometry, the 'data' were the conditions