The story
- Medieval Latin · derived fromtōtālis
- Old French · derived fromtotal
- Middle English · inherited fromtotal
- English todaytotal
From Middle English total, from Old French total, from Medieval Latin tōtālis, from tōtus (“all, whole, entire”) + -ālis, the former element of unknown origin. Perhaps related to Oscan touto (“community, city-state”), Umbrian 𐌕𐌏𐌕𐌀𐌌 (totam, “tribe”, acc.), Old English þēod (“a nation, people, tribe”), from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂ (“people”). More at English Dutch, English thede.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.