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Etymology definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

ETYMOL'OGY, n. [Gr. true, and discourse.]
1. That part of philology which explains the origin and derivation of words, with a view to ascertain their radical or primary signification.
In grammar, etymology comprehends the various inflections and modifications of words, and shows how they are formed from their simple roots.
2. The deduction of words from their originals; the analysis of compound words into their primitives.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a history of a word
2: the study of the sources and development of words

Merriam Webster's

noun (plural -gies) Etymology: Middle English ethimologie, from Anglo-French, from Latin etymologia, from Greek, from etymon + -logia -logy Date: 14th century 1. the history of a linguistic form (as a word) shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into its component parts, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates to a common ancestral form in an ancestral language 2. a branch of linguistics concerned with etymologies • etymological adjective • etymologically adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. (pl. -ies) 1 a the historically verifiable sources of the formation of a word and the development of its meaning. b an account of these. 2 the branch of linguistic science concerned with etymologies. Derivatives: etymological adj. etymologically adv. etymologist n. Etymology: OF ethimologie f. L etymologia f. Gk etumologia (as ETYMON, -LOGY)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Etymology Et`y*mol"o*gy (-j[y^]), n.; pl. Etymologies (-j[i^]z). [L. etymologia, Gr. 'etymologi`a; 'e`tymon etymon + lo`gos discourse, description: cf. F. ['e]tymologie. See Etymon, and -logy.] 1. That branch of philological science which treats of the history of words, tracing out their origin, primitive significance, and changes of form and meaning. 2. That part of grammar which relates to the changes in the form of the words in a language; inflection.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(etymologies) 1. Etymology is the study of the origins and historical development of words. 2. The etymology of a particular word is its history. N-COUNT

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. 1. Science of etymons, science of primitive (linguistic) roots. 2. Derivation. 3. (Gram.) Inflection (of the parts of speech), accidence.

Moby Thesaurus

bowwow theory, comparative linguistics, derivation, descriptive linguistics, dialectology, dingdong theory, eponymy, folk etymology, glossematics, glossology, glottochronology, glottology, grammar, graphemics, historical linguistics, language study, lexicology, lexicostatistics, linguistic geography, linguistic science, linguistics, mathematical linguistics, morphology, morphophonemics, origin, paleography, philology, phonetics, phonology, psycholinguistics, semantic history, semantics, sociolinguistics, structuralism, syntactics, transformational linguistics, word history