Noun
That branch of philological science which treats of the history of words, tracing out their origin, primitive significance, and changes of form and meaning.
That part of grammar which relates to the changes in the form of the words in a language; inflection.
Source: Webster's dictionaryNames, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit. Salman Rushdie
The universal principle of etymology in all languages: words are carried over from bodies and from the properties of bodies to express the things of the mind and spirit. The order of ideas must follow the order of things. Giambattista Vico
I'm always fascinated by etymology. Dermot Healy
Each tetrad gives the etymology of its subject, as an uttering or outering of the body physical or mental, and provides its anatomy in fourfold exegetical manner. Marshall McLuhan
Etymology is a science in which vowels signify nothing at all, and consonants very little. Voltaire
The French word for wanderlust or wandering is 'errance.' The etymology is the same as 'error.' So to wander is to make mistakes. In other words, to make mistakes, to make errors is sort of the idea of learning through trial and error, allowing the mistakes to be part of the process. Robyn Davidson