Etymology

megalithic

meg·a·lith·ic
M3E1G2A1L1I1T1H4I1C3

Today it means: Of or pertaining to megaliths, to the people who made them, or to the period when they were made. Full definition →

Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

PIE word *méǵh₂s From mega- (prefix meaning ‘very large, great’) + -lith (suffix meaning ‘stone’) + -ic (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’, forming adjectives from nouns), probably modelled after monolithic; according to the Oxford English Dictionary the word is first attested earlier than megalith. It is analysable as megalith + -ic.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.