ETYMOLOGY

Etymology

The word history comes from Greek ἱστορία (historia), from the Proto-Indo-European *wid-tor-, from the root *weid-, "to know, to see".^[8] This root is also present in the English words wit, wise, wisdom, vision, and idea, in the Sanskrit word veda,^[9] and in the Slavic word videti and vedati, as well as others.^[10] (The asterisk before a word indicates that it is a hypothetical construction, not an attested form.)The Ancient Greek word ἱστορία, historía, means "inquiry, knowledge acquired by investigation". It was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his Περί Τά Ζωα Ιστορία, Peri Ta Zoa Istória or, in Latinized form, Historia Animalium.^[11] The term is derived from ἵστωρ, hístōr meaning wise man, witness, or judge. We can see early attestations of ἵστωρ in Homeric Hymns, Heraclitus, the Athenian ephebes' oath, and in Boiotic inscriptions (in a legal sense, either "judge" or "witness", or similar). The spirant is problematic, and not present in cognate Greek eídomai ("to appear"). The form historeîn, "to inquire", is an Ionic derivation, which spread first in Classical Greece and ultimately over all of Hellenistic civilization.