altruism

English altruism comes from French altruisme, coined in 1830 by Auguste Comte from autrui ("of or to others") plus the suffix -isme. Autrui traces back through Old French to Latin alteri, the dative form of alter ("other"), and the coinage was apparently inspired by the French legal phrase l'autrui, from le bien, le droit d'autrui ("the good, the right of the other").

Comte invented the French term as a deliberate philosophical coinage rather than a word that evolved naturally, and George Henry Lewes carried it into English in 1853 through his translation of Comte's work on the philosophy of the sciences.

It shares its root with English alter, both descending from the Latin word alter, meaning "other."