I was thinking about where words come from and about etymologies and then I suddenly realised that I did not in fact, know the etymology of the word etymology, and whilst thinking about it came to a sudden stop as the paradoxes that I spend my time thinking about swept up and engulfed me and I began to believe that etymology could not have an etymology but would have had something different as etymology would not have existed unless it had an etymology...and so on and so forth around and around in my head...(almost as troubling to me as the time travel change that occurred before travelling in time...but best leave that for another day...)
Anyway, back to my point...do any of you know the etymology for etymology and whether there was a different word in use before it appeared?

Reminds me of a hamster on a wheel: going nowhere fast.

hehe I have found the link I was searching for about time travel that I used as a reference in a piece on SF that I did...much to the annoyance of my old physics teacher who refuses to believe that Einstein's theories support it...if you are interested... Time travel it is a very interesting piece and he has more on other interesting things from the homepage

would you believe that the origin of etymology is uncertain?!

okay, probly not.
< Old French ethimologie, modern French etymologie, < Latin etymologia, < Greek ἐτυμολογία, < ἐτυμολόγ-ος: see etymologe v.
-oed online

by the way, if you'd like to try the newly relaunched oed site, see my post under Misc.

yeah but what does it mean

yeah but what does it mean

Well, the Greek word ετυμος (etumos) 'true; true sense (of a word)'. So, etymology is the study of true meanings, or, in the words of St Isidore in naming his book of etymologies, Origines 'origins' (from Latin origo).

So the etymology of etymology leads us right to the etymological fallacy!!

There, there, bext, calme-toi. [pat, pat]

This is what the "other OED" (Online Etymology Dictionary) has:
etymology
late 14c., ethimolegia "facts of the origin and development of a word," from O.Fr. et(h)imologie (14c., Mod.Fr. étymologie), from L. etymologia, from Gk. etymologia, properly "study of the true sense of a word," from etymon "true sense" (neut. of etymos "true," related to eteos "true") + logos "word." In classical times, of meanings; later, of histories. Latinized by Cicero as veriloquium. As a branch of linguistic science, from 1640s. Related: Etymological; etymologically.

FWIW, I like this one better than the real OED's.

Edit: speaking of coincidence (hi, tsuwm); I just happened to have the "other OED" site up, having just looked up Septuagint. Our pastor was telling us about it last night at Bible Study, and when I asked if it was based on something about seven, he said no!

yeahbut, it doesn't point you to the obs. rare verb form, etymologe - a. To give an etymological signification to.
b. To trace the etymology of; to derive.

< g >

and, as bexter pointed out, I didn't give the meaning(s), because, being the OED, they are extensive. but here:
1.
a.

(a) The process of tracing out and describing the elements of a word with their modifications of form and sense.


(b) With explanation drawn from the Greek derivation. (Cf. Latin veriloquium, by which Cicero renders the Greek word.)

b. An instance of this process; an account of the formation and radical signification of a word.


c. The facts relating to the formation or derivation (of a word). (In 16–17th c. occur confused expressions such as ‘the etymology comes from,’ ‘to derive the etymology from’.)

†d. Etymological sense, original meaning. Obs.

2. That branch of linguistic science which is concerned with determining the origin of words.

3. Grammar. That part of grammar which treats of individual words, the parts of speech separately, their formation and inflections.

Well, if you count seven times ten as being something about seven...

having just looked up Septuagint. Our pastor was telling us about it last night at Bible Study, and when I asked if it was based on something about seven, he said no!

Well, not sure what he meant by "no". Latin septuaginta '70' is definitely realted historically to septem '7'. The name for the Koine Greek translation of the Tanakh (Old Testament) comes from a passage in the Talmud that says that 72 men translated the Torah (Pentateuch, first five books of the Old Testament) from Hebrew into Greek.

Something that I have always wondered is what the etymologies of Latin and Greek words are? I mean they must have come from somewhere right?

Something that I have always wondered is what the etymologies of Latin and Greek words are? I mean they must have come from somewhere right?

Yes, they did. All words in all languages came from somewhere. In the case of Greek and Latin (as well as a bunch more Indo-European languages) they come from a hypothetically reconstructed proto-language called Proto-Indo-European. The comparative-historical method (in linguistics) is a process by which words (or roots) in a proto-language can be reconstructed by comparing historical and current languages in a language family.

Link That wonderful book you once advised gave me a glimpse of this.

Not really easy for me, but I got to the end and found it fascinating stuff.

Not really easy for me, but I got to the end and found it fascinating stuff.

Sorry about the pain, but glad you enjoyed bits of it.