Etymology

metaphosphate

M3E1T1A1P3H4O1S1P3H4A1T1E1

Today it means: Any salt or ester of metaphosphoric acid. Full definition →

English phosphate ← French phosphate ← Latin phōsphorus
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*me
  2. Proto-Indo-European*meth₂?
  3. Ancient Greekμετᾰ́ (metắ)
  4. Ancient Greekμετᾰ- (metă-)
  5. Englishmeta-
  6. Proto-Indo-European*bʰeh₂-
  7. Proto-Indo-European*bʰéh₂os
  8. Proto-Hellenic*pʰáwos
  9. Ancient Greekφᾰ́ος (phắos)
  10. Ancient Greekφῶς (phôs)
  11. Proto-Indo-European*bʰer-
  12. Proto-Indo-European*bʰéreti
  13. Proto-Hellenic*pʰérō
  14. Ancient Greekφέρω (phérō)
  15. Ancient Greekφωσφόρος (phōsphóros)
  16. Latinphōsphorus
  17. Frenchphosphore
  18. Frenchphosphate
  19. Englishphosphate
  20. English todaymetaphosphate

From meta- + phosphate.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.