local

The story

1. Latin · derived fromlocus“a place”
2. Old French · derived fromlocal
3. Late Latin · derived fromlocālis“belonging to a place”
4. Middle English · inherited fromlocal
5. English todaylocal

From Middle English local, from Late Latin locālis (“belonging to a place”), possibly also via Old French local; ultimately from Latin locus (“a place”). The ring-theoretic senses derive from Krull, who first referred to Noetherian commutative rings with a unique maximal ideal as "Stellenring" (Stellen (“place”) + ring) in 1938. The term was inspired by algebraic geometry, where local rings encode information about the behavior of curves (surfaces, etc.) at points; hence, describe "local" behavior.

Words from the same roots