RECURSIVE ANCESTOR EXPLORER
GLOBAL GRAPH ↗NORTH-STAR FEATURE / ROOT OF THE ROOT
WORD → PARENT → PARENT → UNKNOWNGO TO
THE ROOT.
Do not stop at the first ancestor. Follow every cited route—through compounds, reconstructions, and disagreements—until human knowledge actually stops.
START / NODE 600FrenchModern French record–today
étymologie
The French word for the study or historical explanation of word origins, attested in medieval forms long before its modern scientific scope stabilized.
“French had forms of étymologie centuries before the word named the modern historical-linguistic discipline. The earliest records do not all carry today’s technical sense.”OPEN COMPLETE WORD DOSSIER ↗
EVERY REVIEWED PARENT, NOT ONE EDITORIAL PATH
FOLLOW EVERY BRANCH.
Compound components and competing routes stay separate. Every arrow retains its sound change, semantic change, scholar, confidence, and exact sources.
01
PARENT ROUTES1 REVIEWED RELATIONSHIP
Frenchétymologie
study or explanation of the origin and historical development of words
↑GO DEEPER
Old French · Old French records from c. 1175ethimologietitle reference, word explanation, or learned wordplay depending on the witness
- SOUND CHANGE
- French spelling regularized medieval variants such as ethimologie toward étymologie.
- SEMANTIC CHANGE
- A learned word used for titles, word explanations, and wordplay developed the modern linguistic senses.
- SCHOLAR
- CNRTL Editors · Académie française Editors
- CONFIDENCE
- established
- CHRONOLOGY
- CNRTL separates the earliest records from the later technical senses.
2 CITATIONSÉtymologie: étymologieHistory sections 0, A, and B Étymologie — Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 9e éditionHeadword definition and usage examples AUDIT CANONICAL EDGE 562 ↗
Separates early spellings and special uses from the modern scientific sense.
ORIGINAL ↗Documents the current French endpoint.
ORIGINAL ↗THE ASTERISK IS A PROMISE
RECONSTRUCTION IS
NOT INSCRIPTION.
Crossing into a starred form changes the evidence class. The interface marks that crossing, preserves confidence, and never manufactures the next root to make the picture look complete.