linguistics
ling-GWIS-tiks · noun
Origin
Linguistics was coined in 1847 by philosopher William Whewell from German Linguistik, formed as linguist plus the suffix -ics. Linguist itself traces back to Latin lingua, meaning tongue, via Proto-Italic and ultimately Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s.
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Journey
The word entered English fully formed as a scholarly label, built to name a field rather than evolving from an older everyday sense.
Related words
It's closely related to linguistic and to linguist, both built from the same lingua-derived root meaning tongue.