logos

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos, “word, speech, discourse, reason, account”),^[2][3][4][5] from the ablaut variant of the stem of λέγω (légō, “to pick out, choose; to say”).^[2][5] Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *log-o-, a suffixed form of *leg- (“to collect, gather”), whose derivatives came to mean "to speak" through the idea of picking out words.^[3] The Greek verb is cognate with Latin legō (“to gather, choose, read”).^[5] Hoad notes that "word" was a rare sense of the noun, beside account, ratio, reason, argument and discourse.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A term of Greek philosophy and theology: 1587, in P. Sidney and A. Golding's translation of de Mornay.^[2] Merriam-Webster gives the same year,^[7] Etymonline dates the sense "the divine Word" to the 1580s,^[3] and Dictionary.com has 1580–90.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word's English history begins with senses that had already developed in Greek: Neo-Platonist philosophers used it in metaphysical and theological senses involving both "reason" and "word", and New Testament writers took it up from them.^[3][4] English uses it above all for "the Word" of John 1:1.^[6] Beside this Christian sense, the Shorter Oxford records from the mid 17th century a pervading cosmic idea or spirit of creativity or rationality.^[4] Merriam-Webster also describes its philosophical background: a principle moving and regulating the universe in Heraclitus, and an active cosmic principle immanent in all reality among the Stoics.^[7]

Timeline

• 1587 – a term for the Greek philosophers' and theologians' principle; the divine Word.^[2][3][7]
• mid 17th century – a pervading cosmic idea or spirit of creativity or rationality.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (usually Logos, Christian theology) The Word of God, the second person of the Trinity, incarnate in Jesus.^[9][4]
2. (philosophy) reason or the rational principle expressed in words and things, often personified as the source of order in the universe.^[9][7]

Related words

• logic
• legend
• lecture
• -logy
• dialect
• syllogism
• logistic

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins