Etymology

semi-precious

Today it means: Somewhat precious or valuable. Full definition →

English precious ← Latin sēmi- ← Proto-Indo-European *sēmi
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sem-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*sēmi
  3. Latinsēmi-
  4. Englishsemi-
  5. Englishprecious
  6. English todaysemi-precious

From semi- + precious.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.