economy

Economy comes from Middle English yconomye, borrowed via Old French or Medieval Latin from Latin oeconomia, itself from Greek oikonomía, 'management of a household.' That Greek word joins oîkos ('house') with némō ('distribute, allocate').

The earliest recorded English use, around 1440, applied economy to the management of a monastery's affairs — a single household's business, not a nation's.

Its surface pieces, eco- and -nomy, trace back to oîkos ('house') and némō ('distribute'), the same roots that give economy its literal sense of household distribution.