/ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/·noun·c. 1398 CE — John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum·Established
Origin
From Greek étymon ('true thing') + lógos ('account'), via Latin etymologia and Old French into English c.1380 — theword for word-origins is itself built from the PIE root for 'to be', making it etymologically a claim that to trace a word is to touch being.
Definition
The branch of linguistics concerned with the origin and historical development of words, tracing their forms and meanings through documented history and reconstruction of earlier states.
The Full Story
English (via Old French and Latin from Ancient Greek)Late 14th centurywell-attested
The English word 'etymology' entered the language in the late 14th century, borrowed from Old French 'ethimologie' (also 'etimologie'), which itself was taken directly from Latin 'etymologia'. The Latin form was borrowed from Ancient Greek 'ἐτυμολογία' (etumología), a compound coined by Greek grammarians and philosophers, most notably discussed in Plato's dialogue Cratylus (c. 360 BCE), which is the earliest extended treatment of the relationship betweenwordsand
Did you know?
The Greek word étymon, at the core of 'etymology', comes from the PIE root *es- meaning 'to be' — the same root as English 'is', Latin 'esse', and Sanskrit 'asti'. So every timeyou ask about a word's etymology, you are etymologically asking about its 'being'. Plato took this literally: he believedcorrect etymology disclosed the true nature of things
' or 'literal meaning of a word according to its origin', with '-λογία' (-logía), from 'λόγος' (lógos), meaning 'word, reason, study'. So the original Greek sense
back to the Proto-Indo-European root *es-, the root meaning 'to be', from which also derives the English copula 'is' and the Latin 'esse' ('to be'). The semantic core throughout is 'that which truly is' — the real or original meaning underlying a word's surface form. Latin grammarians such as Varro (De Lingua Latina, c. 47 BCE) and later Isidore of Seville (Etymologiae, c. 600–625 CE) formalised and transmitted the discipline to medieval Europe. The major semantic shift in English was a narrowing: whereas Greek etumología meant the study of true meanings, English 'etymology' came to mean specifically the historical origin and development of a word's form and meaning. Key roots: *es- (Proto-Indo-European: "to be; to exist"), ἔτυμος (étumos) (Ancient Greek: "true, real, actual"), λόγος (lógos) (Ancient Greek: "word, reason, account, study").