Etymology

lexicostatistics

Today it means: A statistical estimation of the degree of linguistic divergence between two languages, based on the proportion of cognates. Full definition →

English statistics ← Ancient Greek λεξῐκός (lexĭkós) ← Proto-Hellenic *légō
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*leǵ-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*léǵ-e-ti
  3. Proto-Hellenic*légō
  4. Ancient Greekλέγω (légō)
  5. Ancient Greekλέξῐς (léxĭs)
  6. Ancient Greekλεξῐκός (lexĭkós)
  7. Englishlexico-
  8. Englishstatistics
  9. English todaylexicostatistics

From lexico- + statistics.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.