Saturday 5 November 2022

James Barr on Etymology

//The main point is that the etymology of a word is not a statement about its meaning but about its history; it is only as a historical statement that it can be responsibly asserted, and it is quite wrong to suppose that the etymology of a word is necessarily a guide either to its ‘proper’ meaning in a later period or to its actual meaning in that period.//

~James Barr, Semantics of Biblical Languages

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