Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.

For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during earlier periods of their history and when they entered the languages in question. 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, currently much etymological research is done on language families where little or no early documentation is available, such as Uralic and Austronesian.

Noun

Etymology For examples of the usage of this term see the citations page.

etymology (plural etymologies)

1. (uncountable) The study of the historical development of languages, particularly as manifested in individual words.
2. (countable) An account of the origin and historical development of a word.

Usage notes

• Not to be confused with entomology (“the study of insects”) or etiology (“the study of causes or origins”).

Matching Results for Etymology:

Salman Rushdie
But names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit. ...

Soil
This page has been listed as needing cleanup since 2009-12-21. ... We don't even know the etymology of the word." ~ Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth by William Bryant Logan " ...

Allah
The term is most likely derived from a contraction of the Arabic article al- and ʾilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh ... monos); another theory traces the etymology of the word to the ...

	New Location:
city:
state/region:
country:

Recreation: Pets: Dogs: Breeds: NonSporting ...
The Canine Information Library: Shiba Inu - Origins of the breed, etymology of the breed name, and links to other native Japanese breeds

---

Science: Social Sciences: Linguistics
Maledicta Press - Specializes in negatively-valued words and expressions from all languages and cultures, focussing on the origin, etymology, meaning, use and influence of ...

---

Science: Social Sciences: Linguistics: Languages ...
Language Sites on the Internet - Word mavens may browse etymology, dictionary, thesaurus links, links to anagrams, oxymorons,palindromes, puns, idioms, banished words and ...