Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. observed that 'a word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary in colour and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used". Winston Churchill added that 'words are the only things which last forever."
A word indeed vary greatly according to circumstances and the time in which it is used. The embodiment of a living thought derives from a root-word, in which a thought was initially expressed, and that root-word, by a Darwinian process of evolution, spawned other words based on the same kernel of thought.
To discover root-words, etymologists study words from different languages having a common meaning called cognates and work backward by deduction. For example:words beginning with tri which include trinity, triangle, triathlon, triceratops, triplet and trivia among others. The common root for these words would appear to be Greek and Latin.
Just like geneticists studying DNA samples try to find a common ancestor, etymologists search for the true source of the word-the ultimate root word called an etymon, a word or morpheme where compounds and derivatives are formed.
It is great when you actually stumbled on to something revealing.
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