AskDefine | Define etymology

Dictionary Definition



1 a history of a word
2 the study of the sources and development of words

User Contributed Dictionary



From etimologie < ethimologie < etymologia < sc=polytonic < sc=polytonic and sc=polytonic < sc=polytonic.


  • a RP , /ˌɛt.ɪˈmɒl.ə.dʒi/, /%Et.I"mQl.@.dZi/
  • a GenAm , /ˌɛtəˈmɑlədʒi/, /%Et@"mAl@dZi/


  1. The study of the historical development of languages, particularly as manifested in individual words.
  2. An account of the origin and historical development of a word.



study of the historical development of languages, particularly of individual words
  • Catalan: etimologia
  • Chinese:
    Mandarin: (yuánxué)
  • Croatian: etimologija
  • Czech: etymologie
  • Danish: etymologi
  • Dutch: etymologie
  • Finnish: etymologia
  • German: Etymologie
  • Greek: ετυμολογία
  • Hungarian: etimológia, szófejtés
  • Japanese: 語源学
  • Norwegian: etymologi
  • Occitan: etimologia
  • Polish: etymologia
  • Portuguese: etimologia
  • Romanian: etimologie
  • Russian: этимология
  • Slovene: etimologija
  • Spanish: etimología
  • Swedish: etymologi
account of the origin and historical development of a word
  • Catalan: etimologia
  • Chinese:
    Mandarin: (yuán)
  • Croatian: etimologija
  • Czech: etymologie
  • Danish: etymologi
  • Dutch: etymologie
  • Finnish: etymologia
  • German: Etymologie
  • Greek: ετυμολογία
  • Hungarian: etimológia, szófejtés
  • Japanese: 語源
  • Norwegian: etymologi
  • Occitan: etimologia
  • Polish: etymologia, źródłosłów
  • Portuguese: etimologia
  • Romanian: etimologie
  • Russian: этимология
  • Slovene: etimologija
  • Spanish: etimología
  • Swedish: etymologi


American Heritage 2000 WordNet 2003

Extensive Definition

In languages with a long detailed history, etymology makes use of philology, the study of how words change from culture to culture over time. However, etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information (such as writing) to be known. By analyzing related languages with a technique known as the comparative method, linguists can make inferences, about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In this way, word roots have been found which can be traced all the way back to the origin of, for instance, the Indo-European language family.
Even though etymological research originally grew from the philological tradition, nowadays much etymological research is done in language families where little or no early documentation is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian.

Etymology of etymology

The word "etymology" itself comes from the Ancient Greek ἐτυμολογία (etumologia) < ἔτυμον (etumon), “‘true sense’” + -λογία (-logia), “‘study of’”, from (logos), "speech, oration, discourse, word". The Greek poet Pindar (b. approx. 522 BC) employed creative etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch employed etymologies insecurely based on fancied resemblances in sounds. Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae was an encyclopedic tracing of "first things" that remained uncritically in use in Europe until the fifteenth century. Etymologicum genuinum is a grammatical encyclopedia edited at Constantinople in the ninth century, one of several similar Byzantine works. The fourteenth-century Legenda Aurea begins each vita of a saint with a fanciful excursus in the form of an etymology.

Types of word origins

Etymological theory recognizes that words originate through a limited number of basic mechanisms, the most important of which are the following:
  • Semantic change: English bead originally meant "prayer", and acquired its modern sense through the practice of counting prayers with beads.
Most often combinations of etymological mechanisms apply. For example, the German word bitte (please) the German word beten (to pray) and the Dutch word bidden (to pray) are related through sound and meaning to the English word bead. The combination of sound change and semantic change often creates etymological connections that are impossible to detect by merely looking at the modern word-forms. For instance, English lord comes from Old English hlāf-weard, meaning literally "bread guard". The components of this compound, in turn, yielded modern English loaf and ward.

Methods of etymology


English etymology

As a language, English is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, a West Germanic variety, although its current vocabulary includes words from many languages. The Anglo-Saxon roots can be seen in the similarity of numbers in English and German, particularly seven/sieben, eight/acht, nine/neun and ten/zehn. Pronouns are also cognate: I/ich; thou/Du; we/wir; she/sie. However, language change has eroded many grammatical elements, such as the noun case system, which is greatly simplified in Modern English; and certain elements of vocabulary, much of which is borrowed from French. Though more than half of the words in English either come from the French language or have a French cognate, most of the common words used are still of Germanic origin. For an example of the etymology of an English irregular verb of Germanic origin, see the etymology of the word go.
When the Normans conquered England in 1066 (see Norman Conquest) they brought their Norman language with them. During the Anglo-Norman period which united insular and continental territories, the ruling class spoke Anglo-Norman, while the peasants spoke the English of the time. Anglo-Norman was the conduit for the introduction of French into England, aided by the circulation of Langue d'oïl literature from France. This led to many paired words of French and English origin. For example, beef is cognate with the modern French bœuf, meaning the meat of a cow; veal with , meaning calf meat; pork with , meaning pig meat; and poultry with , meaning chicken. This relationship carries over into the names for farm animals where the cognate is with modern German. For example swine/Schwein; cow/Kuh; calf/Kalb; sheep/Schafe. It has been asserted that the reason why the foodstuff has the Norman name, and the animal the Anglo-Saxon name, was due to the fact that the Norman rulers who ate meat (meat was an expensive commodity and could rarely be afforded by the Anglo-Saxons), and the Anglo-Saxons who farmed the animals. Others dispute this.
English words of more than two syllables are likely to come from French, often with modified terminations. For example, the French words for syllable, modified, terminations and example are , , and . In many cases, the English form of the word is more conservative (that is, has changed less) than the French form. Polysyllabic words in English also carry connotations of better education or politeness.
English has proven accommodating to words from many languages. Scientific terminology relies heavily on words of Latin and Greek origin. Spanish has contributed many words, particularly in the southwestern United States. Examples include buckaroo from vaquero or "cowboy", alligator from el lagarto or "the lizard", and rodeo. Cuddle, eerie and greed come from Scots; , mosque, muslim, apricot, adobe, alcohol, algorithm, assassin, cotton, caliber,sherif, orange, julep, hazard, candy, cat, jar, jacket, safari, sofa and zero from Arabic; honcho, sushi, and tsunami from Japanese; dim sum, gung ho, kowtow, kumquat, ketchup, and typhoon from Cantonese Chinese; behemoth, hallelujah, Satan, jubilee, and rabbi from Hebrew; taiga, sable and sputnik from Russian; galore, whiskey, phoney and Tory from Irish; guru,karma,pandit from Sanskrit; kampong and amok from Malay; and boondocks from the Tagalog word bundok. See also loanword.

History of etymology

The search for meaningful origins for familiar or strange words is far older than the modern understanding of linguistic evolution and the relationships of languages, with its roots no deeper than the 18th century. From Antiquity through the 17th century, from to Pindar to Sir Thomas Browne, etymology had been a form of witty wordplay, in which the supposed origins of words were changed to satisfy contemporary requirements.

Ancient Sanskrit etymology

The Sanskrit linguists and grammarians of ancient India were the first to make a comprehensive analysis of linguistics and etymology. The study of Sanskrit etymology has provided Western scholars the basis of historical linguistics and modern etymology. Four of the most famous Sanskrit linguists are:
  • Yaska (c. 6th-5th centuries BCE)
  • (c. 520-460 BCE)
  • (2nd century BCE)
  • (2nd century BCE)
Though they are not the earliest Sanskrit grammarians, they follow a line of more ancient grammar people of Sanskrit dating back up to several centuries earlier. The earliest of attested etymologies can be found in Vedic literature, in the philosophical explanations of the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads.
The analyses of Sanskrit grammar of the previously mentioned linguists involve extensive studies on the etymology (called Nirukta or Vyutpatti in Sanskrit) of Sanskrit words, because the ancient Indo-Aryans considered sound and speech itself to be sacred, and for them, the words of the sacred Vedas contained deep encoding of the mysteries of the soul and God.

Ancient Greco-Roman etymology

One of the earliest philosophical texts of the Classical Greek period to deal with etymology was the Socratic dialogue Cratylus (c. 360 BC) by Plato. During much of the dialogue, Socrates makes guesses as to the origins of many words, including the names of the gods. In his Odes Pindar spins complimentary etymologies to flatter his patrons. Plutarch (Life of Numa Pompilius) spins an etymology for pontifex ("bridge-builder"): the priests, called Pontifices.... have the name of Pontifices from potens, powerful, because they attend the service of the gods, who have power and command over all. Others make the word refer to exceptions of impossible cases; the priests were to perform all the duties possible to them; if any thing lay beyond their power, the exception was not to be cavilled at. The most common opinion is the most absurd, which derives this word from pons, and assigns the priests the title of bridge-makers. The sacrifices performed on the bridge were amongst the most sacred and ancient, and the keeping and repairing of the bridge attached, like any other public sacred office, to the priesthood.
Plutarch's etymology of "syncretism", involving Cretans banding together, rather than a parallel to concrete or accrete, is uncritically accepted even today (see Syncretism). Degrading and insulting pseudo-etymologies were a standard weapon of Jerome's arsenal of sarcasm. A modern false etymology claims that ANTHROPOS, "human being," comes from ANA and OPSOMAI--"one who looks up." This not only is an irrelevant human characteristic, but it also fails to account for some of the letters. Better would be ANTI, "back and forth," RHETHEIS, "making a sound," and EPOS, "word": "a creature that speaks back."
Without doubt, the most important Roman work containing - albeit mostly erroneous - etymologies was the famous multi-volume De Lingua Latina written by Varro.

Medieval etymology


Modern etymology

see comparative method
Etymology in the modern sense emerges in the late 18th century European academia, within the context of the wider "Age of Enlightenment", although preceded by 17th century pioneers such as Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn, Vossius, Stephen Skinner, Elisha Coles or William Wotton.
The study of etymology in Germanic philology was introduced by Rasmus Christian Rask in the early 19th century, and taken to high standards with the German Dictionary of the Brothers Grimm. The successes of the comparative approach culminated in the Neogrammarian school of the late 19th century.
Still in the 19th century, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used etymological strategies (principally, and most famously, in On the Genealogy of Morals, but also elsewhere) to argue that moral values have definite historical (specifically cultural) origins where modulations in meaning regarding certain concepts (such as "good" and "evil") showed how these ideas had changed over time, according to which value-system appropriated them. Although many of Nietzsche's etymologies are wrong, the strategy has gained popularity in the 20th century, with philosophers such as Jacques Derrida using etymologies to indicate former meanings of words with view to decentring the "violent hierarchies" of Western metaphysics.


  • Skeat, Walter W. (2000), The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology, repr ed., Diane. (ISBN 0-7881-9161-6)
  • Skeat, Walter W. (1963) An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, (ISBN 0-19-863104-9)
  • C. T. Onions, G. W. S. Friedrichsen, R. W. Burchfield, (1966, reprinted 1992, 1994), Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, (ISBN 0-19-861112-9)
  • Liberman, Anatoly (2005) "Word Origins...and How We Know Them: Etymology for Everyone", (ISBN 0-19-516147-5)

External links

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Indo-European languages

Altaic languages

Uralic languages

Afroasiatic languages

Creole languages and Conlangs

Other languages

etymology in Old English (ca. 450-1100): Wordstǣrcræft
etymology in Arabic: علم تاريخ الألفاظ
etymology in Aragonese: Etimolochía
etymology in Asturian: Etimoloxía
etymology in Bengali: ব্যুৎপত্তি
etymology in Bosnian: Etimologija
etymology in Breton: Etimologiezh
etymology in Bulgarian: Етимология
etymology in Catalan: Etimologia
etymology in Czech: Etymologie
etymology in Corsican: Etimologia
etymology in Welsh: Geirdarddiad
etymology in Danish: Etymologi
etymology in German: Etymologie
etymology in Estonian: Etümoloogia
etymology in Spanish: Etimología
etymology in Esperanto: Etimologio
etymology in Basque: Etimologia
etymology in Persian: ریشه‌شناسی
etymology in French: Étymologie
etymology in Friulian: Etimologie
etymology in Galician: Etimoloxía
etymology in Hindi: व्युत्पत्ति
etymology in Croatian: Etimologija
etymology in Indonesian: Etimologi
etymology in Interlingua (International Auxiliary Language Association): Etymologia
etymology in Icelandic: Orðsifjafræði
etymology in Italian: Etimologia
etymology in Hebrew: אטימולוגיה
etymology in Georgian: ეტიმოლოგია
etymology in Cornish: Etymologyl
etymology in Latin: Etymologia
etymology in Luxembourgish: Etymologie
etymology in Lithuanian: Etimologija
etymology in Hungarian: Etimológia
etymology in Malay (macrolanguage): Etimologi
etymology in Dutch: Etymologie
etymology in Japanese: 語源
etymology in Norwegian: Etymologi
etymology in Norwegian Nynorsk: Etymologi
etymology in Novial: Etimologia
etymology in Occitan (post 1500): Etimologia
etymology in Low German: Etymologie
etymology in Polish: Etymologia
etymology in Portuguese: Etimologia
etymology in Romanian: Etimologie
etymology in Russian: Этимология
etymology in Saterfriesisch: Etymologie af Woudgeschichte
etymology in Albanian: Etimologjia
etymology in Simple English: Etymology
etymology in Slovak: Etymológia
etymology in Slovenian: Etimologija
etymology in Serbian: Етимологија
etymology in Serbo-Croatian: Etimologija
etymology in Finnish: Etymologia
etymology in Swedish: Etymologi
etymology in Tamil: சொற்பிறப்பியல்
etymology in Thai: ศัพทมูลวิทยา
etymology in Turkish: Etimoloji
etymology in Ukrainian: Етимологія
etymology in Walloon: Etimolodjeye
etymology in Chinese: 语源学

Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words

bowwow theory, comparative linguistics, derivation, descriptive linguistics, dialectology, dingdong theory, eponymy, folk etymology, glossematics, glossology, glottochronology, glottology, grammar, graphemics, historical linguistics, language study, lexicology, lexicostatistics, linguistic geography, linguistic science, linguistics, mathematical linguistics, morphology, morphophonemics, origin, paleography, philology, phonetics, phonology, psycholinguistics, semantic history, semantics, sociolinguistics, structuralism, syntactics, transformational linguistics, word history
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