graffiti

English graffiti was borrowed from Italian graffiti, the plural of graffito, which came from the Italian verb graffire. That verb was borrowed from Ancient Greek γρᾰ́φω (grắphō, "to write"), itself from Proto-Hellenic *grə́pʰō and ultimately Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ-.

The word moved from a Greek verb meaning simply "to write" into Italian, where graffire and graffito came to describe scratching or etching a surface — a sense English inherited when it borrowed the plural form graffiti wholesale.

Because graffiti descends from the same Greek root grắphō as English's "graph" and "-graphy" words, it shares a distant family tie with terms like photograph and biography, all rooted in the idea of writing or marking.