The story
- Latin · derived fromaffluentem
- Middle French · borrowed fromaffluent
- English todayaffluent
Borrowed from Middle French affluent, borrowed in turn from Latin affluentem, accusative singular of affluēns, present active participle of affluō (“flow to or towards; overflow with”), from ad (“to, towards”) + fluō (“flow”) (cognate via latter to fluid, flow). Sense of “wealthy” (plentiful flow of goods) c. 1600, which also led to nominalization affluence. By surface analysis, af- + fluent.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.