taxonomy

Etymology

It is borrowed from French taxonomie,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} a word first used by the botanist A. P. de Candolle in his “Théorie élémentaire de la botanique” (1813).^[2][3] It was coined irregularly from Ancient Greek τάξις (táxis, “arrangement, order”)^[2][3][7][5] and -νομία (-nomía, “method”),^[3][4][6] from νόμος (nómos, “law, custom”),^[7][3] from the verb νέμειν (némein, “to deal out, manage”).^[6][3] The Greek noun is the verbal noun of τάσσειν (tássein, “to arrange”),^[3] the source also of tactics and taxis.^[3] The OED and Klein note that the regular Greek combining form is ταξι- (taxi-),^[2][7] and Klein gives “taxionomy” as the regular English form;^[7] the OED records taxinomy as a separate English word.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Classification, especially as regards its general laws or principles, or the branch of a science that deals with classifying: 1819, in the British Review.^[2] Etymonline also dates it to 1819,^[3] Barnhart to 1828,^[8][6] Merriam-Webster to about 1828,^[9] and Dictionary.com to 1805–15.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word was used at first mainly in natural history, for the ordering of plants and animals.^[3][9] Merriam-Webster connects biological taxonomy with the Linnaean period and the establishment of binomial nomenclature,^[9] and Klein calls Linnaeus the founder of the science.^[7] From 1835 it was also used of a particular classification of something, a single classifying scheme,^[2][11] and the New Oxford Dictionary of English records this countable use for schemes of any kind, such as a taxonomy of smells.^[12] Its own derivatives include taxonomic and taxonomist,^[7] and the related term taxon for a single classified group.^[13]

Timeline

• 1813 – French taxonomie, in de Candolle's botany.^[2]
• 1819 – classification, or the part of a science that deals with it.^[2][3]
• 1835 – a particular system of classification.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The branch of biology that classifies organisms into groups by their structure, origin and relationships; systematics.^[13][9][11]
2. The science or principles of classification in general.^[9][2][13]
3. A particular system or scheme of classification: a taxonomy of bird calls.^[2][12]

Word family

• taxonomist
• taxonomically
• chemotaxonomy
• cytotaxonomy
• taxonomic
• taxon
• numerical taxonomy

Related words

• taxis
• tactics
• syntax
• taxidermy
• taxinomy
• -nomy
• astronomy
• economy

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins