Etymology

Etymology (/ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/) is the study of the history of words. By extension, the term 'the etymology (of a word)' means the origin of the particular word. For place names, there is a specific term, toponymy. the priests, called Pontifices.... have the name of Pontifices from potens, powerful, because they attend the service of the gods, who have power and command over all. Others make the word refer to exceptions of impossible cases; the priests were to perform all the duties possible to them; if anything lay beyond their power, the exception was not to be cavilled at. The most common opinion is the most absurd, which derives this word from pons, and assigns the priests the title of bridge-makers. The sacrifices performed on the bridge were amongst the most sacred and ancient, and the keeping and repairing of the bridge attached, like any other public sacred office, to the priesthood. Lucy is said of light, and light is beauty in beholding, after that S. Ambrose saith: The nature of light is such, she is gracious in beholding, she spreadeth over all without lying down, she passeth in going right without crooking by right long line; and it is without dilation of tarrying, and therefore it is showed the blessed Lucy hath beauty of virginity without any corruption; essence of charity without disordinate love; rightful going and devotion to God, without squaring out of the way; right long line by continual work without negligence of slothful tarrying. In Lucy is said, the way of light. Etymology (/ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/) is the study of the history of words. By extension, the term 'the etymology (of a word)' means the origin of the particular word. For place names, there is a specific term, toponymy. For Greek—with a long written history—etymologists make use of texts, and texts about the language, to gather knowledge about how words were used during earlier periods and when they entered the language . Etymologists also apply the methods of comparative linguistics to reconstruct information about languages that are too old for any direct information to be available. By analyzing related languages with a technique known as the comparative method, linguists can make inferences about their shared parent language and its vocabulary. In this way, word roots have been found that can be traced all the way back to the origin of, for instance, the Indo-European language family. Even though etymological research originally grew from the philological tradition, much current etymological research is done on language families where little or no early documentation is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian. The word etymology derives from the Greek word ἐτυμολογία (etumología), itself from ἔτυμον (étumon), meaning 'true sense or sense of a truth', and the suffix -logia, denoting 'the study of'. In linguistics, the term etymon refers to a word or morpheme (e.g., stem or root) from which a later word derives. For example, the Latin word candidus, which means 'white', is the etymon of English candid.