Etymology

extraterrestrial

ex·tra·ter·res·tri·al

Today it means: Originating from outside of the Earth's atmosphere, from space, or from another planet; alien to Earth or its environment. Full definition →

English terrestrial ← Latin extrā ← Proto-Italic *eksteros
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*h₁éǵʰ
  2. Proto-Indo-European*h₁éǵʰs
  3. Proto-Indo-European*h₁eǵʰsteros
  4. Proto-Italic*eksteros
  5. Latinexter
  6. Latinextrā
  7. Englishextra-
  8. Englishterrestrial
  9. English todayextraterrestrial

From extra- + terrestrial.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.