etymologia (Latin)

Where does "etymologia" come from?

The Latin noun 'etymologia' was borrowed from Ancient Greek 'ἐτυμολογία'[1]. This Greek term combined 'ἐτυμολόγος', meaning a student of etymology, with the suffix '-ῐ́ᾱ'[2]. In turn, 'ἐτυμολόγος' was formed from 'ἔτυμος', meaning 'real, true', and '-λογος', meaning 'word' or 'speech'[4]. The element 'ἔτυμος' is closely related to 'ἐτεός', meaning 'true'[5]. Meanwhile, the component 'λογος' traces back through Proto-Hellenic '*lógos' to the Proto-Indo-European root '*leǵ-', meaning 'to collect (words)'[7].

Open questions

The ancient Greek word 'ἐτεός' is suggested to perhaps originate from a Proto-Indo-European root '*set-', meaning 'stable, true'. [8]

Full etymology tree

etymologia (Latin), 'etymology'
- borrowed ἐτυμολογία (etumología) (Ancient Greek), 'etymology'
  - compound ἐτυμόλογος (etumólogos) (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”)'
  - 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

ἐτυμολογία (Ancient Greek)

Descendants and derived words

etymology (English)
étymologie (French)
etimología (Spanish)
etimologia (Catalan)
etymologie (Czech)
etymologi (Danish)
etymologie (Dutch)
etymologia (Finnish)
etymologia (Finnish)
Etymologie (German)
etimologia (Italian)
etimologija (Lithuanian)

Sources

Updated August 2026

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