Etymology

euphonious

eu·pho·ni·ous
E1U1P3H4O1N1I1O1U1S1

Today it means: Of sounds, especially speech: demonstrating or possessing euphony; agreeable to the ear; pleasant-sounding. Full definition →

French euphonie ← Ancient Greek εὐφωνία ← Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂-
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*bʰeh₂-“to say, speak”
  2. Ancient Greek · derived fromεὐφωνία
  3. French · borrowed fromeuphonie
  4. English todayeuphonious

From euphonical + -ous (suffix forming adjectives denoting possession or presence of a quality, commonly in abundance). Euphonical is derived from euphonic + -al (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’); with euphonic from euphony + -ic (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘of or pertaining to’), and euphony borrowed from French euphonie, from Ancient Greek εὐφωνία (euphōnía), from εὐ- (eu-, prefix meaning ‘good, well’) + φωνή (phōnḗ, “sound; (human) voice; discourse, speech”) (from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to say, speak”)) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns).

Words from the same roots

Frencheuphonie all →

euphony

Ancient Greekεὐφωνία all →

euphony

Proto-Indo-European*bʰeh₂- all →

telephonebenfavouritefantasticfavorabandonbaneeuphonyphantasiaepiphenomenonaphantasiahomo Aristophaneusphonate

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.