etimología (Spanish)

Where does "etimología" come from?

The Spanish word "etimología" traces its roots back to the Ancient Greek "etumología," which combined "étumon," meaning "true sense," with the suffix "-logía" for study or discourse. This term was later adopted into Latin as "etymologia" before eventually entering Spanish. It serves as a literal reminder that etymology is fundamentally the study of the "true" or original meaning behind a word.

Full etymology tree

• etimología (Spanish), 'etymology'
  • borrowed etymologia (Latin), 'etymology'
    • borrowed ἐτυμολογία (etumología) (Ancient Greek), 'etymology'
      • compound ἐτυμόλογος (etŭmólogos) (Ancient Greek), 'studying etymology'
        • compound ἔτυμος (étumos) (Ancient Greek), 'true, real, sure'
          • derived ἐτεός (eteós) (Ancient Greek), 'in accordance with reality or one's honest perception of it: true, genuine'
            • inherited *set- (Proto-Indo-European)
        • compound -λογος (-logos) (Ancient Greek), 'combining form of λόγος (lógos, “word, speech”)'
          • derived λόγος (lógos) (Ancient Greek), 'that which is said: word, sentence, speech, story, debate, utterance, argument'
            • inherited *lógos (Proto-Hellenic)
              • inherited *leǵ- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to gather, collect, with derivatives meaning to speak by carefully selecting one's words.'
      • suffix -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā) (Ancient Greek), 'Primitive suffix added to the stems of adjectives in -ύς (-ús) and some nouns to form feminine gender'

Ancestors

• etymologia (Latin)
• ἐτυμολογία (Ancient Greek)

Descendants and derived words

• etimología popular (Spanish)

Updated July 2026

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