Etymology Explorer › English

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

  1. Common among the general public; generally...

Ancestry of “popular”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Englishpopuler—
2Old Frenchpopulaire—
3Latinpopulāris—
4Latin-āris—
5Latin-ālis—
6Proto-Italic-ālis—

Words derived from “popular”

  • popularity
  • unpopular
  • popularly
  • unpopularity
  • popularize
  • popularization
  • popularise
  • popularizer
  • popularisation
  • populariser
  • antipopular
  • semipopular
  • popularism
  • unpopularly
  • nonpopular
  • superpopular
  • repopularize
  • popularness
  • repopularise
  • megapopular
  • nonpopularity
  • unpopularize
Every word from Proto-Italic -ālis →