climat (French)

Where does "climat" come from?

French climat is inherited from Middle French climat, which was borrowed from Latin clima, itself from Ancient Greek κλίμα (klíma). In Greek, the word originally meant “slope” or “inclination,” from a verb meaning “to slope or incline,” and it later came to refer to a “region” or “zone of latitude.” From there it passed through Latin and into French, where it developed into the modern sense of “climate.”

Full etymology tree

climat (French), 'climate'
- inherited from climat (Middle French)
  - borrowed from clima (Latin), 'slope, inclination'
    - borrowed from κλίμα (Ancient Greek), 'a slope, incline, inclination'
      - derived from κλίνω (Ancient Greek), 'to bend, slant'
        inherited from *klíňňō (Proto-Hellenic)
        inherited from *ḱl̥-né-y-ti (Proto-Indo-European)
        derived from *ḱl̥néyti (Proto-Indo-European), 'to be leaning, sloped, bent'
        affix *ḱley- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to shelter, cover'
        derived from *ḱléyti (Proto-Indo-European)
        affix *ḱel- (Proto-Indo-European), 'to cover'
        suffix *-éyti (Proto-Indo-European), 'Forms aktionsart verbs from roots.'
        affix *-né- (Proto-Indo-European), 'Forms mostly transitive imperfective verbs from perfective intransitive roots.'
      - suffix -μα (Ancient Greek), 'Added to verbal stems to form neuter nouns denoting the effect or result of an action, a particular instance of an action, or the object of an action'
        inherited from *-mə (Proto-Hellenic)
        inherited from *-mn̥ (Proto-Indo-European), 'Creates action nouns or result nouns from verbs.'

Ancestors

clima (Latin)
κλίμα (Ancient Greek)

Descendants and derived words

climatique (French)
climatiser (French)
climat (Romanian)
klima (Serbo-Croatian)
klima (Serbo-Croatian)
klima (Turkish)

Updated March 2026

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