etymology
et.y.mol.o.gy \-je-\ n [ME ethimologie, fr. L etymologia, fr. Gk, fr.
etymon + -l]ogia -logy 1: the history of a linguistic form (as a word)
shown by tracing its develo pment 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