Where does “crayon” come from?
Crayon comes from French crayon, formed with the diminutive suffix -on from Latin creta meaning chalk, itself from the Proto-Indo-European root ḱer- relating to growth.
crayon (English): A stick of colored chalk or wax used for drawing;...
Definitions
- A stick of colored chalk or wax used for drawing;...
Ancestry of “crayon”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | French | crayon | pencil; pen; cock, dick, prick |
| 2 | French | craie | chalk |
| 3 | Latin | Crēta | chalk |
| 4 | Latin | -āceus | aceous; resembling, having the nature of, forming, belonging to |
| 5 | Latin | -āx | ish, -y |
| 6 | Latin | -ium | Suffix used to form abstract nouns, sometimes... |
| 7 | Latin | -ius | forming adjectives from nouns; nominative neuter... |
| 8 | Proto-Italic | -jōs | Forms comparative adjectives |
| 9 | Proto-Indo-European | -yós | Creates adjectives from noun or verb stems |