etymon
et.y.mon \'et-*-.ma:n\ \-m*\ n or et.y.ma also etymons [L, fr. Gk, literal meaning of a word according to its origin, fr. etymos] pl true; akin to Gk eteos true 1a: an earlier form of a word in the same language or an ancestral language 1b: a word in a foreign language that is the source of a particular loanwor d 2: a word or morpheme from which words are formed by composition or derivat ion