ˌed.əˈmäləjē, ˌetə-, -ji noun
( -es )
Etymology: alteration (influenced by Latin etymologia ) of Middle English ethimologie, probably from Medieval Latin ethimologia, alteration of Latin etymologia, from Greek, from etymon + -logia -logy
1.
a. : the history often including the prehistory of a linguistic form (as a word or morpheme) as shown by tracing its phonetic, graphic, and semantic development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing the course of its transmission from one language to another, by analyzing it into the component parts from which it was put together, by identifying its cognates in other languages, or by tracing it and its cognates back to a common ancestral form in a recorded or assumed ancestral language
b. : a branch of linguistics concerned with etymologies
2. : accidence
3. : the etymological meaning of a word