Word.ws English Dictionary

etymologize

etymologize verb: to find or provide the etymology for a word.

Verb

etymologize (third-person singular simple present etymologizes, present participle etymologizing, simple past and past participle etymologized)

  1. (ambitransitive) To find or provide the etymology for a word.
    • It has long been noted that the Sardinian toponymy and lexicon contain numerous elements that cannot satisfactorily be etymologized within Latin.2025, Cid Swanenvleugel, The Pre-Roman Elements of the Sardinian Lexicon, page 7

Forms of etymologize

third-person singular presentetymologizes
present participleetymologizing
past participleetymologized
pastetymologized
alternative formetymologise

Origin of etymologize

From etymology + -ize.

Words formed from etymologize

Phrases with etymologize

Questions about etymologize

What does etymologize mean?
Etymologize means to find or provide the etymology for a word.
What part of speech is etymologize?
Etymologize is a verb.
What is the past tense of etymologize?
The past tense of etymologize is etymologized.

Words near etymologize in the dictionary

  1. etymologist
  2. etymologists
  3. etymologizable
  4. etymologization
  5. etymologizations
  6. etymologize
  7. etymologized
  8. etymologizer
  9. etymologizers
  10. etymologizes
  11. etymologizing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: etymologize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “etymologize.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/etymologize. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.