Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The origin and historical development of a linguistic form as shown by determining its basic elements, earliest known use, and changes in form and meaning, tracing its transmission from one language to another, identifying its cognates in other languages, and reconstructing its ancestral form where possible.
- noun The branch of linguistics that deals with etymologies.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun That part of philology which treats of the history of words in respect both to form and to meanings, tracing them back toward their origin, and setting forth and explaining the changes they have undergone.
- noun Specifically The particular history of a word, including an account of its various forms and senses.
- noun In grammar, that division of grammar which treats of the parts of speech and their inflections.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun That branch of philological science which treats of the history of words, tracing out their origin, primitive significance, and changes of form and meaning.
- noun That part of grammar which relates to the changes in the form of the words in a language; inflection.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun uncountable The study of the
historical development of languages, particularly as manifested in individual words. - noun countable An account of the
origin andhistorical development of a word.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the study of the sources and development of words
- noun a history of a word
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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There seems little room for doubt: the acronym etymology is not valid.
Posh 2009
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There seems little room for doubt: the acronym etymology is not valid.
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There seems little room for doubt: the acronym etymology is not valid.
Posh 2009
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Since etymology is destiny, and right there in its original form 1000 years ago is twain, prescriptivists argue that between is illogical when more than two things are being discussed.
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First, despite what Wittgenstein said, etymology is not destiny*.
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A folk etymology is one that is widely believed but which is unfounded linguistically, though often it ‘seems’ right.
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Knowledge of etymology is completely unnecessary for using a language.
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The word's etymology is traced to the late 19th Century, "perhaps from French esquiver, ` dodge, slink away. '"
Writing Maxine 2009
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Since etymology is destiny, and right there in its original form 1000 years ago is twain, prescriptivists argue that between is illogical when more than two things are being discussed.
The real difference between “between” and “among” « Motivated Grammar 2009
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First, despite what Wittgenstein said, etymology is not destiny*.
The real difference between “between” and “among” « Motivated Grammar 2009
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The ‘secretary’ literally means ‘person entrusted with secrets,’ from the medieval Latin secretarius, the trusted officer who writes the letters and keeps the records.
Secretary jobs in the age of AI Noah Smith 2023
plethora commented on the word etymology
Am I the only one that ever gets this confused with entomology?
February 18, 2008
anydelirium commented on the word etymology
Definitely not- I get them mixed up all the time.
February 18, 2008
milosrdenstvi commented on the word etymology
As do I - and even my mother, who is an entomologist.
June 17, 2010
jwjarvis commented on the word etymology
Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.
Alice: The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things.
Humpty Dumpty: The question is: which is to be master - that's all.
November 9, 2010