The story
- Latin · derived fromreferre
- Old French · derived fromreferer
- Middle English · inherited fromreferren
- English todayrefer
From Middle English referren, from Old French referer, from Latin referre. The noun (used in journalism) is from the verb. Doublet of relate. See also infer, collate and confer, delate and defer, as well as prelate and prefer among others.
Words from the same roots
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.