étymologies

Etymologies refer to the origins and historical development of words. The study of etymology investigates how a word’s form and meaning have changed over time, including its roots in older languages, its patterns of sound change, and its paths of borrowing and semantic shift. The plural term étymologies is used when discussing multiple word origins across languages.

Scholarly methods combine the comparative method, philology, and internal reconstruction to propose older forms and their relationships. Etymologists distinguish inherited cognates from borrowings, track semantic drift, and document findings in dictionaries and linguistic corpora. Many etymologies are best explanations rather than absolute proofs, and new evidence can revise established accounts.

Common sources include historical texts, inscriptions, glossaries, and other documentary evidence. Etymologies draw on a wide range of languages, such as Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and the languages of contact zones where words were borrowed. Regular sound correspondences, known sound laws, and processes like metathesis, assimilation, and semantic shift help reconstruct earlier stages of a word. Borrowings and language contact often complicate origins, sometimes producing folk etymologies or misleading resemblances.

Examples illustrate how etymologies illuminate history. The English word university comes from Latin universitas, meaning a whole or whole body. Salary derives from Latin salarium, money for salt in Roman times. Quarantine traces to Italian quarantena or quarantina, historically referring to a forty-day isolation period. German kindergarten shows a later loan from German, and piano reflects Italian during musical terminology development.

Limitations include incomplete records, language change, and uncertainty about a word’s exact path. Etymology remains a probabilistic pursuit, but it offers insight into language history, contact between cultures, and the evolving meanings of words.