Etymology

adventitious

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Today it means: From an external source; not innate or inherent, foreign. Full definition →

Medieval Latin adventītius ← Latin adventīcius
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The story

  1. Latin · derived fromadventīcius“foreign, strange, accidental”
  2. Medieval Latin · borrowed fromadventītius“coming from abroad, extraneous”
  3. English todayadventitious

From Medieval Latin adventītius (“coming from abroad, extraneous”), a corruption of Latin adventīcius (“foreign, strange, accidental”), from adventus (“arrival, coming, approach, advent”) + -īcius (suffix forming adjectives), from adveniō (“to arrive”) + -tus (suffix forming action nouns).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.