Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “reflect” come from?

Reflect comes from Old French reflect, from Latin reflecto meaning to bend back, composed of Latin re- and a root from Proto-Italic wre deriving from Proto-Indo-European wert- and wer-.

reflect (English): To bend back from a surface; To be bent back ...

Definitions

  1. To bend back from a surface; To be bent back ...

Ancestry of “reflect”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Old Frenchreflecter—
2Latinreflectō—
3Latinrĕ-—
4Latinprōdūcō—
5Latinprō-—
6Proto-Italic*pro-—
7Proto-Indo-Europeanpro-toward, forward
8Proto-Indo-Europeanpor-to give birth; forward, through; going, passage
9Proto-Indo-Europeanper-before, in front; first; to go through
10Proto-Indo-Europeanpr̥tóspassed , crossed

Words derived from “reflect”

  • reflective
  • reflector
  • reflectance
  • reflectively
  • reflectivity
  • unreflective
  • reflectiveness
  • reflectarray
  • unreflectively
  • reflectometry
  • nonreflective
  • reflectron
  • reflectometer
  • reflectography
  • irreflective
  • antireflective
  • retroreflector
  • reflectivist
  • retroreflective
  • reflectogram
  • reflecteth
  • hyperreflectivity
  • hyperreflective
  • reflectorless
Every word from Proto-Indo-European pr̥tós →