anomalie (French)

Where does "anomalie" come from?

The French noun 'anomalie' is ultimately a borrowing from Ancient Greek 'ἀνωμαλία'[1]. This Greek term is built from 'ἀνώμαλος', meaning un-, combined with the suffix '-ία'[2]. The base 'ἀνώμαλος' itself derives from the prefix 'ᾰ̓-' denoting 'un-', paired with 'ὁμᾰλός', which means 'even' or 'level'[3]. Further back, 'ὁμαλός' traces to the Proto-Indo-European root '*sem-h₂-lo-s', originating from '*sem-' meaning 'together' or 'one'[4].

Open questions

• The o- grade of the Greek word is thought by some to have been imported by analogy from 'ὁμός'. [4]

Full etymology tree

• anomalie (French), 'anomaly'
  • borrowed ἀνωμαλία (anōmalía) (Ancient Greek), 'inequality, irregularity, unevenness, unsmoothness'
    • derived ἀνώμαλος (anṓmalos) (Ancient Greek), 'uneven, irregular'
      • compound ἀ- (a-) (Ancient Greek), 'The alpha privativum, used to make words that have a sense opposite to the word (or stem) to which the prefix is attached. It is also known as privative a and alpha privative; a-, ab-, an-, anti-, contra-, de-, dis-, ex-, il-, im-, in-, ob-, ne-, non-, not, un-'
      • compound ὁμαλός (homalós) (Ancient Greek), 'even, level'
        • derived *sem-h₂-lo-s (Proto-Indo-European)
          • derived *sem- (Proto-Indo-European), 'together, one'
        • influenced by ὁμός (homós) (Ancient Greek), 'same, common, joint'
    • suffix -ία (-ía) (Ancient Greek), 'Added to stems of adjectives, rarely to the stems of verbs, and even more rarely to the stems of nouns, to form feminine abstract nouns'

Ancestors

• ἀνωμαλία (Ancient Greek)

Sources

1. anomalie (French) - Wiktionary
2. ἀνωμαλία (anōmalía) (Ancient Greek) - Wiktionary
3. ἀνώμαλος (anṓmalos) (Ancient Greek) - Wiktionary
4. ὁμαλός (homalós) (Ancient Greek) - Wiktionary

Updated September 2026

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