Etymology

phonetics

pho·ne·tics
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Today it means: The study of the physical sounds of human speech, concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones), and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception, and their representation by written symbols. Full definition →

English phonetic ← Latin phōnēticus ← Ancient Greek φωνητῐκός (phōnētĭkós)
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*bʰeh₂-
  2. Proto-Hellenic*pʰōnā́
  3. Ancient Greekφωνή (phōnḗ)
  4. Ancient Greekφωνέω (phōnéō)
  5. Ancient Greekφωνητῐκός (phōnētĭkós)
  6. Latinphōnēticus
  7. Englishphonetic
  8. English todayphonetics

From phonetic + -s. By surface analysis, phone (“linguistic unit of sound”) + -etic + -s.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.