genealogy

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English genealogie, also geneologi,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French genealogie, modern généalogie,^[5][6][3][2] from Late Latin geneālogia (“tracing of a family”),^[6][3][5] from Ancient Greek γενεαλογία (genealogía, “the making of a pedigree”),^[6][2][5] from γενεαλόγος (genealógos, “genealogist”),^[5][2][7] formed from γενεά (geneá, “race, generation, descent”) and -λόγος (-lógos, “that treats of”) (see -logy).^[5][2][3] The Greek noun is from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (“to give birth, beget”),^[6][4] and Merriam-Webster refers it to kin.^[8] Anglo-Norman genealogie is recorded from the 13th century, meaning genealogy or lineage.^[9] An Old English word for it was folctalu, literally "folk tale".^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lineage, pedigree, family stock: before 1325, in the Cursor Mundi.^[3][5] Etymonline dates the word to the early 14th century, as line of descent or pedigree,^[6] Dictionary.com to 1250–1300.^[10] The sense "an account of one's descent from ancestors" is first quoted about 1384, in the early version of the Wycliffite Bible.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

The account of descent, listing the persons between an ancestor and a descendant, is the sense that lasted;^[5][7] Skeat notes that the Greek word occurs in the New Testament, in 1 Timothy 1:4.^[12] The sense "lineage, family stock" was obsolete by 1550, and Gavin Douglas used the word in 1513 for progeny or offspring, a sense last recorded in 1768.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as the history of the succession of families, or a pedigree.^[13] The study of family pedigrees as a field of knowledge is recorded from 1805 in the OED,^[5] while Etymonline dates it to 1768.^[6] In 1880 the word was applied in biology to the line of development of an animal or plant from older forms.^[5][14] The derivatives followed: genealogical from 1577,^[3] genealogist in the 17th century.^[15]

Timeline

• before 1325 – lineage, pedigree (obsolete by 1550), in the Cursor Mundi.^[5][3]
• c. 1384 – an account of one's descent from an ancestor; a pedigree.^[5]
• 1513 – progeny, offspring (obsolete by 1768).^[5]
• 1805 – the study of family pedigrees.^[5] Etymonline dates this sense to 1768.^[6]
• 1880 – in biology, the line of development of an organism from older forms.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. An account of the descent of a person, family or group from an ancestor or ancestors; a pedigree or family tree.^[8][5][14]
2. Descent from an ancestor; lineage.^[8][14]
3. The study of family histories and pedigrees.^[8][5]
4. (biology) The line of development of an animal or plant from earlier forms.^[14][5][8]

Word family

• genealogical
• genealogically
• genealogist

Related words

• genesis
• genus
• gene
• generation
• kin
• -logy

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press