Etymology

semimajor

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Today it means: Of or pertaining to the semimajor axis, the long axis of an ellipse Full definition →

English major ← Middle English major ← Latin maior
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sem-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*sēmi
  3. Latinsēmi-
  4. Englishsemi-
  5. Proto-Indo-European*méǵh₂s
  6. Proto-Indo-European*méǵyōs
  7. Proto-Italic*majjōs
  8. Latinmaior
  9. Middle Englishmajor
  10. Englishmajor
  11. English todaysemimajor

From semi- + major.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.