Etymology

exclamation

ex·clam·a·tion
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Today it means: The act of loudly calling or crying out, for example, as in anger, grief or pain, joy, surprise, etc.; (countable) an instance of this. Full definition →

Middle English exclamacioun ← Middle French exclamation ← Latin exclāmātiō
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*h₁éǵʰ
  2. Proto-Indo-European*h₁éǵʰs
  3. Proto-Italic*eks
  4. Latinex
  5. Latinex-
  6. Proto-Indo-European*kelh₁-
  7. Proto-Indo-European*kl̥h₁m-
  8. Proto-Italic*klām-
  9. Latinclāmō
  10. Latinexclāmō
  11. Latinexclāmātiō
  12. Middle Frenchexclamation
  13. Middle Englishexclamacioun
  14. English todayexclamation

From Late Middle English exclamacion, exclamacioun (“calling or crying out; complaint, lament”), borrowed from Middle French exclamation (modern French exclamation), from Latin exclāmātiō (“exclamation”), from exclāmō (“to call out, cry; to exclaim, shout”) + -tiō (suffix forming action nouns denoting processes, actions, or results of actions). Exclāmō is derived from ex- (prefix meaning ‘away; out’) + clāmō (“to call out, cry; to exclaim, shout”) (probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- (“to call out to”)).

Words from the same roots

Proto-Indo-European*kelh₁- all →

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Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.