When was etymology discovered?

Answer 1

People have always speculated about the origin of words, sometimes sensibly, sometimes less so.

The beginnings of modern systematised linguistics (which is when etymology moves from being a parlour game to the halls of science) can be dated to the publication of Sir William Jones' The Sanscrit Language [1786] with its proposal that Languages evolve (like living organisms) and have family resemblances and word-histories.

quite so

& i cant leave such a nice question as this one alone either

for in case the question also means

when were both the practice of etymology & the word etymology itself discovered

& or how did this fine practice actually come under the rubric of this fine word

the answer might go as follows

tho both the word & the practice of etymology have roots in ancient times

the earliest meaning of the root word etymologia was

not the study of the histories of words at all

but rather only

the study of the true meanings or essences of the words

& tho the word etymology entered English no later than 1398

it may or may not yet have made the full transition in its meaning by that date

my suspicion is probably not

& indeed it is strange & frankly delicious that the word for word history has such a strange history

but all the above still only skirts rather than actually answers this larger question

exactly when was it actually discovered that etymology actually means etymology

my guess at this point would be perhaps earlier than 1786 but also perhaps later than 1398

more research may yet reveal exactly when this fascinating discovery or crossing point actually occurred

or more likely

when this transitional phase of overlapping meanings actually began & ended

& indeed additional research by me now suggests this sense of both the word & the study of etymology date back in tandem to 1662 anyway in the writings of vossius

if not earlier

but 1662 based on hard evidence