The story
- Proto-Indo-European · derived from*kʷ-
- Latin · derived fromubicātus“located”
- New Latin · borrowed fromubicātiō“location”
- English todayubication
Borrowed from New Latin ubicātiō (“location”) (whence Portuguese ubicação and Spanish ubicación; compare the inflected forms ubicātiōnis, ubicātiōnī, etc.) + -ion. Ubicātiō is derived from Latin ubicātus (“located”) + -iō (suffix forming abstract nouns); while ubicātus is a past participial form of ubicō (“to situate”) (found in British works from the 14th century), from ubi (“where”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷ- (primary interrogative root)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs). By surface analysis, ubicate + -ion (ubicate is probably a back-formation from ubication). Later occurrences are influenced by Spanish ubicación, hence their use chiefly in Spanish contexts.
Words from the same roots
New Latinubicātiō all →
Latinubicātus all →
Proto-Indo-European*kʷ- all →
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.