Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Etymology |
EtymologyNoun1. A history of a word. 2. The study of the sources and development of words. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "etymology" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1550. (references) |
Etymology: Etymology \Et`y*mol"o*gy\ (-j[y^]), noun; plural Etymologies(-j[i^]z). [Latin etymologia, Greek 'etymologi`a; 'e`tymon etymon + lo`gos discourse, description: compare to French ['e]tymologie. See Etymon, and -logy.]. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Etymology is the study of the origins of words. Some words have been derived from other languages, possibly in a changed form (the source words are etymons). Through old texts and comparisons with other languages, etymologists try to reconstruct the history of words - when they entered a language, from what source, and how their form and meaning changed.
Etymologists also try to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information (such as written texts) to be known. By comparing words in related languages, one can learn about their shared parent language. In this way, word roots have been found which can be traced all the way back to the origin of the Indo-European language family.
The word etymology (the etymology of etymology) comes from the Greek étymos (true meaning of a word) and lògos (science).
Etymology of English Vocabulary
As a language, English is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, a dialect of West Germanic (as was Old Low German), 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 six~sechs, seven~sieben, eight~acht, 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. In fact, more than half of the words in English either come from the French language, or have a French cognate. However, the most common root words are still of Germanic origin.
French was introduced into England when the Normans conquered England in 1066 (see Norman invasion). During the French reign on the British isles, the ruling class spoke French while the peasants spoke the English of the time. This led to many paired words of French and English origin. For example, beef is from the French boeuf, meaning "steer". Veal is from veau, meaning "calf". Pork is from porc, meaning "pig", and poultry from poulet, meaning "chicken".
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 syllabe, modifié, terminaisons and exemple.
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 for include buckaroo from vaquero or "cowboy", alligator from el legarto or "lizard", and rodeo. Cuddle, eerie and greed come from Scots, behemoth from Hebrew, perestroika, balalaika, taiga, tundra and sputnik from Russian, and lagniappe from Quechua. See also loanword.
Basic ideas in etymology
- Usually, words start with a more complicated spelling which becomes simpler (for example, by abbreviation). The patterns by which words are simplified constantly change.
- Slang words may enter the common language. Sometimes common words may suddenly become slang.
- Vulgar words may become euphemisms for other words and sometimes euphemisms become vulgarisms.
- Words may become joined together, as in portmanteau words.
- Words may start off as acronyms.
- The boundaries between words may move. For example, 'a nuncle' became 'an uncle'.
- Words come from specialist trades, different cultures, and even works of literature. Words may be named after a particular place (toponyms) or after a particular person (eponyms).
Related Topics
- Back-formation
- Cognate
- Company names etymology
- Country names etymology
- Computer terms origins
- Folk etymology
- Family name etymology
- False cognate
- False friend
- Given name etymology
- Placename etymology
- Proto-language
- Semantic progression
- Suppletion.
External Links
- Word and phrase origins
- Bibliography of etymological dictionaries
- Etymonline An online etymology dictionary
- A list of some interesting etymologies
- Words origins
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Etymology."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Word | Etymology, derivation; glossology, terminology orismology; paleology; (philology). |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Etymology |
| English words defined with "etymology": Bailey ♦ etymological, Etymologies, etymologist, etymologize ♦ folk etymology ♦ Nathan Bailey, Nathaniel Bailey ♦ stark naked ♦ To curry favor. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "etymology": asbestos cork award ♦ Bad Thing, Beefeaters, blit ♦ Cock and Bull Story, Contractions, Culdees ♦ grep, Gyrfalcon, Gerfalcon ♦ Hocus Pocus ♦ Philology, Classical, Philology, Oriental, Philology, Romance, Pigs ♦ Wick, Wicked. (references) |
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Periodicals |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Not a metaphor, not an etymology of argot which does not contain its lesson |
Gulliver's Travels | Swift, Jonathan | The word Houyhnhnm, in their tongue, signifies a horse, and in its etymology, the perfection of nature |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Etymology" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Etymology" is used about 46 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 46 | 50,285 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "etymology": folk etymology. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "etymology": folk-etymology. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "etymology"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | etimologji. (various references) | |
Arabic | تعليل للفظ أو إتيمولوجيا, دراسة تعنى باصل الكلمة, بسط و علل. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | етимология (pedigree). (various references) | |
Chinese | 語源 . (various references) | |
Czech | etymologie. (various references) | |
Farsi | علم اشتقاق لغات , صرف (Accident, Expenditure, Sheer, Stark), ریشه جوءی . (various references) | |
Finnish | etymologia. (various references) | |
French | étymologie. (various references) | |
German | etymologie. (various references) | |
Greek | ετυμολογία. (various references) | |
Hebrew | אטימולו'י". (various references) | |
Hungarian | etimológia, szófejtés. (various references) | |
Indonesian | etimologi, ilmu asal kata. (various references) | |
Italian | etimologia. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 語原 (word derivation, word root), 語源学 , 語源 (word derivation, word root). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | "'"がく, "'" (five strings, five-stringed instrument, word derivation, word root). (various references) | |
Manx | bun-ocklaght. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | etymologyay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | etimologia. (various references) | |
Romanian | etimologie (derivation, pedigree), origine (ancestry, beginning, birth, blood, cause, commencement, derivation, descent, emanation, extraction, fountain-head, genesis, growth, origin, origination, parent, parentage, provenance, rise, root, root stock, source, spring, strain). (various references) | |
Russian | этимология. (various references) | |
Scottish | caoimhneas (kindness. This word is supposed by folk etymology to be from caomh). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | etimologija. (various references) | |
Spanish | etimología. (various references) | |
Swedish | etymologi (derivation). (various references) | |
Thai | นิรุกติศาสตร์, ประวัติของคำ. (various references) | |
Turkish | etimoloji, köktenbilim, dilin köklerini araştıran bilim. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | етимологія. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | từ nguyên từ nguyên học. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"Etymology" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: aetimology, entimology, entymology, etamology, etemology, ethmology, ethymology, etimology, etmology, etmyology, etomology, etymelogy, etymnology, etymolegy, etymolgy, etymologie, etyology, eytmology, eytomology. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "etymology" (pronounced e'tumÄ"lujē) |
| 8 | -t u m Ä" l u j ē | entomology, epistemology. |
| 7 | -u m Ä" l u j ē | ophthalmology. |
| 6 | -m Ä" l u j ē | Pomology, seismology. |
| 5 | -Ä" l u j ē | anesthesiology, anthology, anthropology, apology, archaeology, archeology, astrology, bacteriology, biology, biotechnology, cardiology, chronology, cosmetology, criminology, cytology, dendrochronology, dermatology, kinesiology, doxology, ecology, embryology, endocrinology, epidemiology, ethnology, ethology, etiology, genealogy, geology, geomorphology, gerontology, graphology, gynecology, histology, Hymnology, ideology, immunology, limnology, meteorology, methodology, microbiology, micropaleontology, mineralogy, morphology, mycology, mythology, neurology, numerology, oncology, ontology, ornithology, otology, paleontology, pathology, penology, petrology, pharmacology, physiology, psychology, radiology, rheumatology, serology, sociology, terminology, theology, toxicology, urology, virology, zoology. |
| 4 | -l u j ē | analogy, cosmology, elegy, eulogy, trilogy. |
| 3 | -u j ē | prodigy, strategy. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-g-l-m-o-o-t-y-y" | |
-2 letters: myology. | |
-3 letters: gloomy, mooley, motley. | |
-4 letters: gemot, gloom, golem, gooey, looey, molto, motel, motey, ology. | |
-5 letters: elmy, gelt, gley, glom, loge, logo, logy, loom, loot, melt, mole, molt, moly, mool, moot, mote, ogle, oleo, tole, tome, tool, toom, toyo, ylem. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-g-l-m-o-o-t-y-y" | |
+5 letters: etymologically, metapsychology. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Quotations: Fiction | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Expressions 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Derivations 10. Rhymes 11. Anagrams 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
