Where does “opinion” come from?
opinion (Middle English) comes from Middle French opinion, from Latin opīniō, from Latin -iō, from Proto-West Germanic -jō, from Proto-Indo-European -yéti, from Proto-Indo-European yé-, from Chichewa iye — he, she.
Ancestry of “opinion”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle French | opinion | opinion thought, estimation |
| 2 | Latin | opīniō | opinion, conjecture, imagination, fancy, belief, expectation |
| 3 | Latin | -iō | — |
| 4 | Proto-West Germanic | -jō | Forms agent nouns from verbs |
| 5 | Proto-Indo-European | -yéti | Creates intransitive, often deponent,... |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | yé- | — |
| 7 | Chichewa | iye | he, she |