Etymology

Slavic

S1L1A1V4I1C3

Today it means: Of the Slavs, their cultures, or the branch of the Indo-European languages associated with them. Full definition →

English Slav ← Middle English Sclave ← Medieval Latin Sclāvus
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*ḱlewH-der.?
  2. Proto-Slavic*slov-
  3. Proto-Slavic*Slov-?
  4. Proto-Slavic*slověninъ
  5. Ancient GreekΣκλαβηνός (Sklabēnós)
  6. Medieval GreekΣκλᾰ́βος (Sklắbos)
  7. Medieval LatinSclāvus
  8. Middle EnglishSclave
  9. EnglishSlav
  10. English todaySlavic

From Slav + -ic. Piecewise doublet of slavey.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.