Etymologically
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ἐτυμολογία

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /e.ty.mo.lo.ɡí.aː/[1]
  • IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /e.ty.mo.loˈʝi.a/[1]
  • IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /e.ty.mo.loˈʝi.a/[1]

Forms

ἐτῠμολογῐ́ᾱ (etumologíā) f (genitive ἐτῠμολογῐ́ᾱς); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is derived from ἐτυμόλογος (etumólogos, “one who studies the true sense of words”) with the suffix -ία (-íā).[1] Its first element is ἔτυμος (étumos, “true”), whose neuter ἔτυμον (étumon) meant the true sense of a word.[2] Etymonline calls the whole “study of the true sense”.[2][3] Ἔτυμος is related to ἐτεός (eteós, “true”).[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dionysius of Halicarnassus uses it for the analysis of a word to find its true origin.[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Philo and the grammarian Apollonius Dyscolus use it, and the related verb ἐτυμολογέω (etumologéō) means to analyse a word and find its origin, as Athenaeus says Plato did with the word for wine.[4] Triantafyllidis notes that the Hellenistic word meant the true or original meaning of a word.[5]

Latin borrowed it as etymologia, and English took etymology from Old French in the late 14th century.[1][2] Modern Greek ετυμολογία (etymología) is the origin and history of a word, in the modern sense taken from French and German.[5]

Timeline

  • 1st century BC – Dionysius of Halicarnassus uses it.[4]
  • 1st century BC – 1st century AD – Philo uses it.[4]
  • 2nd century AD – Apollonius Dyscolus uses it in grammar.[4]
  • Late 14th century – English borrows etymology through French.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. etymology, the analysis of a word to find its origin and true sense.[4][2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki