Where does “lawsuit” come from?
Lawsuit comes from English law plus suit, with law from Middle English lawe, Old French sieute, Old Norse lǫg, and ultimately Proto-Indo-European roots including sed-, ḱley-, ḱel-, and sekʷ-.
lawsuit (English): In civil law, a case where two or more people...
Definitions
- In civil law, a case where two or more people...
Ancestry of “lawsuit”, step by step
lawsuit traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via English Law
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | Law | perhaps originally meaning someone who lives near a burial mound |
| 2 | English | speaker | One who speaks; Loudspeaker; Speakerphone |
| 3 | English | -ine | Of or pertaining to; Used to form demonyms;... |
| 4 | French | -ine | feminine singular of -in; female equivalent of... |
| 5 | French | -é | past participle root verb suffix of regular -er... |
| 6 | Middle French | -é | past participle root verb suffix of regular; -ed, -en, -n |
| 7 | Old French | -é | used to form past participles of regular -er... |
| 8 | Latin | -a | suffixed to the roots of verbs, forms agent... |
| 9 | Proto-Italic | -ā | Forms masculine agent nouns from prefixed or compounded bases |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | -éh₂ | — |
via English suit
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | suit | A set of clothes to be worn together, now... |
| 2 | Middle English | sute | Clothes or clothing; especially those that match;... |
| 3 | Anglo-Norman | suite | pursuit |
| 4 | Vulgar Latin | sequita | — |
| 5 | Latin | sequor | I follow, come or go after |
| 6 | Proto-Italic | sekʷōr | follow, come/go after |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | sékʷetor | to be following |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | sekʷ- | to follow; to see; to say |