The story
- Latin · derived frombrevis“short”
- Latin · derived fromsemi-“half”
- Italian · borrowed fromsemibreve
- English todaysemibreve
From Italian semibreve, ultimately from Latin semi- (“half”) and Latin brevis (“short”).
Words from the same roots
Latinsemi- all →
semi-semisomnia
Latinbrevis all →
briefbrevebrevetbrevi-brevipenbrevipennatebrevirostralbrevium
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.