/et"euh mon'/ , n. , pl. etymons, etyma /-meuh/ .
the linguistic form from which another form is historically derived, as the Latin cor "heart," which is the etymon of English cordial, or the Indo-European * k ( e ) rd-, which is the etymon of Latin cor, Greek kardía, Russian serdtse, and English heart.
[ 1560-70; étymon the essential meaning of a word seen in its origin or traced to its grammatical parts (neut. of étymos true, actual, real) ]