Etymology

etic

e·tic
E1T1I1C3

Today it means: Of or pertaining to analysis of a culture from a perspective situated outside that culture. Full definition →

English phoneticclip. ← Latin phōnēticus ← Ancient Greek φωνητῐκός (phōnētĭkós)
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*bʰeh₂-
  2. Proto-Hellenic*pʰōnā́
  3. Ancient Greekφωνή (phōnḗ)
  4. Ancient Greekφωνέω (phōnéō)
  5. Ancient Greekφωνητῐκός (phōnētĭkós)
  6. Latinphōnēticus
  7. Englishphoneticclip.
  8. English todayetic

Coined by American linguist Kenneth Pike in 1954 from phonetic. * Kenneth Lee Pike (1962), With Heart and Mind: A Personal Synthesis of Scholarship and Devotion, page 37: “I have coined the term etic to refer to the detached observer’s view […]”

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.