Etymology

semipermeable

S1E1M3I1P3E1R1M3E1A1B3L1E1

Today it means: Permeable to some things and not to others, as a cell membrane which allows some molecules through but blocks other substances. Full definition →

English permeable ← Latin sēmi- ← Proto-Indo-European *sēmi
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sem-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*sēmi
  3. Latinsēmi-
  4. Englishsemi-
  5. Englishpermeable
  6. English todaysemipermeable

From semi- + permeable.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.