The story
- Latin · borrowed frompraestigiosus“full of tricks”
- English todayprestigious
Attested since the 1540s; Latin praestigiosus (“full of tricks”), praestigiae (“juggler's tricks”), possibly an alteration of praestringō (“to blindfold, to dazzle”), from prae- (“before”) with stringō (“to bind or tie”); equivalent to prestige + -ious. Unstressed /ɛ/ is retained by analogy with prestige.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.