Where does “reflection” come from?
Reflection comes from Middle French reflexion, meaning the action of bending back or turning back.
reflection (English): The act of reflecting or the state of being...
Definitions
- The act of reflecting or the state of being...
Ancestry of “reflection”, step by step
reflection traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via Middle French reflexion
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle French | reflexion | — |
| 2 | Late Latin | reflexio | turning away or back; reflection |
| 3 | Latin | reflectere | second-person singular future passive indicative... |
| 4 | Latin | reflecto | I turn back or away; I reflect |
| 5 | Latin | re- | back, backwards; again; prefix added to various... |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | wret- | — |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | wert- | to turn, to rotate |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | wer- | to burn; to cover, heed, notice; squirrel |
via Middle French reflection
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle French | reflection | — |
Words derived from “reflection”
- antireflection
- interreflection
- reflectional
- reflectionless
- retroreflection
- irreflection
- metareflection
- transflection
- multireflection
- reflectionally
- superreflection
- reflection-in-action
- reflection-on-action
- hyporeflection
- misreflection
- pseudoreflection
- reflectionism
- rotoreflection
- self-reflection
- reflektio
- reflectionlessness
- reflectionlessly