catalogue

Catalogue comes through Middle English cathaloge and Old French catalogue from Late Latin catalogus, itself from Greek katálogos, meaning 'enrollment, register.' That Greek word traces to katalégō, 'to recount, make a list,' built from kata- ('downwards, towards') plus légō ('to say, to speak, to tell').

The word has stayed close to its roots throughout — from a Greek term for listing things aloud, to a Latin and French word for a register, to the English noun for an ordered list of items.

It shares its second half with words like dialogue and epilogue, all built on Greek légō, 'to speak' — so a catalogue and a dialogue are, at root, both acts of speaking things out.