etymology
/ˌɛtəˈmɑləd͡ʒi/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.94 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
5
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The scientific study of the origin and evolution of a word's semantic meaning across time, including its constituent morphemes and phonemes.
Uncountable
noun
The entire catalogue of meanings that a word, morpheme, or sign has carried throughout its history.
Countable
noun
An account of the origin and historical development of a word as presented in a dictionary or the like.
Countable
Example Sentences
- "Holonyms: historical linguistics < linguistics"
- "Although written the same, the words lead (the metal) and lead (the verb) have totally different etymologies."
- "The etymology of the term Japlish is disputed and contentiously so."
- "Etymologies appeal to people with a very wide variety of interests and intellectual backgrounds. A very few people, such as myself, spend most of their time researching etymologies. A slightly larger number do so very occasionally. Many, many more people look at etymologies, but have never researched any themselves. Some people will never even have thought of etymologies as things which need to be researched. Particularly when etymologies are encountered in the compressed form found in many dictionaries, they can seem to be a given, rather than the (often very tentative) results of extensive research. This book is intended for anyone who has taken the important first step of realizing that etymologies are the result of research, and would like to discover something about the nature of that research, and the principles and methodologies which underlie it."
- "I began to study coats of arms, visit the Web sites of portrait galleries and look up the etymology of Gaelic names."
- "Where did this name Harlequin (or Arlechin) come from? Most etymologies for the name give the Hellequin theory."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *set-? Ancient Greek ἐτεός (eteós)der.? Ancient Greek ἔτυμος (étumos) Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *lóǵos Proto-Hellenic *lógos Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos) Ancient Greek -λογος (-logos) Ancient Greek ἐτῠμόλογος (etŭmólogos) Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-i-eh₂ Proto-Hellenic *-íā Ancient Greek -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā) Ancient Greek ἐτῠμολογῐ́ᾱ (etŭmologĭ́ā)bor. Latin etymologiader. Old French ethimologiebor. Middle English ethymologie English etymology From Middle English ethymologie, from Old French ethimologie, from Latin etymologia, from Ancient Greek ἐτυμολογία (etumología), from ἔτυμον (étumon, “true sense”) and -λογία (-logía, “study or logic of”), from λόγος (lógos, “word; explanation”). By surface analysis, etymo- + -logy.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ethymologie, ethimologie, etymologia, ἐτυμολογία
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌɛtəˈmɑləd͡ʒi/
- British English: /ˌɛtɪˈmɒləd͡ʒi/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Linguistics.