Etymology

noun

N1O1U1N1

Today it means: A word that functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as person, animal, place, word, thing, phenomenon, substance, quality, or idea: one of the basic parts of speech in many languages, including English. Full definition →

Middle English noun ← Anglo-Norman noun, non, nom ← Latin nōmen
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*h₁nómn̥
  2. Proto-Italic*nōmn̥
  3. Latinnōmen
  4. Anglo-Normannoun, non, nom
  5. Middle Englishnoun
  6. English todaynoun

Inherited from Middle English noun, from Anglo-Norman noun, non, nom, from Latin nōmen (“name; noun”). The grammatical sense in Latin was a semantic loan from Koine Greek ὄνομα (ónoma). Doublet of name and nomen.

Words from the same roots

Latinnōmen all →

nominalnomennomen gentilicium

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.