etymology (English)

Where does "etymology" come from?

The word "etymology" traces its roots to Ancient Greek, combining étumon, meaning "true sense," with lógos, meaning "word" or "study." This term journeyed through Latin as etymologia and Old French as ethimologie before entering Middle English. It ultimately settled into modern English to describe the fascinating scientific pursuit of tracing a word's original meaning and history.

Full etymology tree

• etymology (English), 'The scientific study of the origin and evolution of a word's semantic meaning across time, including its constituent morphemes and phonemes.'
  • inherited ethymologie (Middle English), 'The study of such senses.'
    • borrowed ethimologie (Old French), 'etymology'
      • derived etymologia (Latin), 'etymology'
        • borrowed ἐτυμολογία (etumología) (Ancient Greek), 'etymology'
          • compound ἐτυμόλογος (etŭmólogos) (Ancient Greek), 'studying etymology'
            • compound ἔτυμος (étumos) (Ancient Greek), 'true, real, sure'
              • influence ἐτεός (eteós) (Ancient Greek), 'in accordance with reality or one's honest perception of it: true, genuine'
            • compound λόγος (lógos) (Ancient Greek), 'that which is said: word, sentence, speech, story, debate, utterance, argument'
          • suffix -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā) (Ancient Greek), 'Primitive suffix added to the stems of adjectives in -ύς (-ús) and some nouns to form feminine gender'

Direct ancestors

• ethymologie (Middle English)
• ethimologie (Old French)
• etymologia (Latin)
• ἐτυμολογία (Ancient Greek)

Updated June 2026

Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris