Etymology

tetraspan

T1E1T1R1A1S1P3A1N1

Today it means: Any of a family of membrane glycoproteins whose multimolecular complexes have four transmembrane domains Full definition →

English span ← Middle English spanne ← Old English spann
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*kʷetwóres
  2. Proto-Hellenic*kʷétwores
  3. Ancient Greekτέσσᾰρες (téssăres)
  4. Ancient Greekτετρᾰ- (tetră-)
  5. Englishtetra-
  6. Proto-Indo-European*(s)pend-
  7. Proto-Germanic*spannō
  8. Old Englishspann
  9. Middle Englishspanne
  10. Englishspan
  11. English todaytetraspan

From tetra- + span.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.