Where does “popular” come from?
Popular comes from Latin popularis, formed from Old Latin poplos and the Latin adjectival suffix -aris, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European -li-.
popular (English): Common among the general public; generally...
Definitions
- Common among the general public; generally...
Ancestry of “popular”, step by step
popular traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via Middle English populer
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | populer | Commonly known |
| 2 | Old French | populaire | — |
| 3 | Latin | populāris | popular (by, of or for the people) |
| 4 | Latin | -āris | first conjugation |
| 5 | Latin | -ālis | — |
| 6 | Proto-Italic | -ālis | forms relational adjectives |
via Latin popularitas
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Latin | popularitas | an effort to please the people |
| 2 | Latin | -tās | ty, -dom, -hood, -ness, -ship |
| 3 | Proto-Indo-European | -teh₂ts | Used to form nouns representing state of being |
| 4 | Proto-Indo-European | -teh₂ | Used to form nouns representing state of being |
| 5 | Proto-Indo-European | -tós | Creates verbal adjectives from verb stems |