etymology
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: ĕt'ĭ-mŏlʹə-jē
ipa: /ˌɛtɪˈmɒləd͡ʒi/
enpr: ĕt'ə-mŏʹlə-jē
ipa: /ˌɛtəˈmɒləd͡ʒi/
ipa: [ˌɛɾəˈmɒləd͡ʒi]
enpr: ĕt'ə-mŏʹlə-jē
ipa: /ˌɛtəˈmɑləd͡ʒi/
ipa: [ˌɛɾəˈmɑləd͡ʒi]
enpr: ĕt'ə-mŏlʹə-jē
ipa: /ˌetəˈmɔləd͡ʒi/
ipa: [ˌeɾəˈmɔləd͡ʒi]
enpr: ĕt'ĭ-mŏlʹə-jē
ipa: /ˌetɪˈmɒləd͡ʒi/
ipa: [ˌeʈɪˈmɔləd͡ʒi]
ipa: [ˌeʈɪˈmaləd͡ʒi]
enpr: ĕt'ə-mŏlʹə-jē
ipa: /ˌetəˈmɑləd͡ʒi/
ipa: [ˌetɘˈmɑləd͡ʒi]
rhymes: -ɒlədʒi
Forms: form: etymologies
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”).
Senses: examples: Holonyms: historical linguistics < linguistics
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: The scientific study of the origin and evolution of a word's semantic meaning across time, including its constituent morphemes and phonemes.
examples: text: Although written the same, the words lead (the metal) and lead (the verb) have totally different etymologies.
text: The etymology of the term Japlish is disputed and contentiously so.
ref: 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 13:
glosses: The entire catalogue of meanings that a word, morpheme, or sign has carried throughout its history.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2011 [2009], Philip Durkin, “About this book”, in The Oxford Guide to Etymology, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page ix:
text: I began to study coats of arms, visit the Web sites of portrait galleries and look up the etymology of Gaelic names.
ref: 2012 August 13, Leslie Larson, “Up a family tree”, in CNN:
text: Where did this name Harlequin (or Arlechin) come from? Most etymologies for the name give the Hellequin theory.
ref: 2023 July 2, Talia Felix, “Homing in on Harlequin”, in Online Etymology Dictionary:
synonyms: derivation
glosses: An account of the origin and historical development of a word as presented in a dictionary or the like.
examples: text: I'm sure you know the etymology of your name, Goodspeed.
ref: 1996, The Rock:
glosses: The direct origin of a name, as in who someone was named after.
Hyponyms: onomastics
Derived terms: etymologic
etymological
etymologick
etymologise
etymologism
folk etymology
global etymology
popular etymology
pseudoetymology
surface etymology
Related terms: word: etymologist
word: etymologize
word: etymon
sense: Similarly named but unrelated fields
word: entomology
sense: Similarly named but unrelated fields
word: ethnology
sense: Similarly named but unrelated fields
word: ethology
sense: Similarly named but unrelated fields
word: etiology
sense: Similarly named but unrelated fields
word: aetiology