English

Pepsi

Pepsi comes from Ancient Greek πέψις ‘softening, ripening, or changing by means of…’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- ‘to crack, crush (foodstuff), pulverize (grain)’.

Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*pekʷ-‘to crack, crush (foodstuff), pulverize (grain)’reconstructed
Proto-Indo-European, derivedc. 4500–2500 BCE*pékʷ-ye-reconstructed
Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEπέσσω‘to ripen’
Ancient Greek, derivedc. 800–300 BCEπέψιςpépsis‘softening, ripening, or changing by means of heat’
Englishearliest quotation 1993Pepsi

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*pekʷ-‘to crack, crush (foodstuff), pulverize (grain)’reconstructed
Proto-Indo-European, derivedc. 4500–2500 BCE*pékʷ-ye-reconstructed
Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEπέσσω‘to ripen’
Ancient Greek, derivedc. 800–300 BCEπέψιςpépsis‘softening, ripening, or changing by means of heat’
Englishearliest quotation 1993Pepsi

Earliest quotation: 1993, Canadian Review of Comparative Literatur: “[…] and to maintain a relatively superior, paternalistic position…”

The story

Originally short for Pepsi-Cola, coined in 1898 as a renaming of the brand from "Brad's Drink", in order to imply that the fizzy drink could cure dyspepsia. While some have suggested Pepsi is short for the digestive enzyme pepsin, sometimes with the assumption that pepsin was used as an ingredient in Pepsi, this is a folk etymology, as there is no official confirmation of it nor any evidence for a link between the enzyme and the beverage.1folk etymology The source marks this as unproven or a folk etymology. Quoted, not asserted. Nonetheless, both the words pepsin and dyspepsia ultimately derive from Ancient Greek πέψις (pépsis), which means “cooking, fermentation or digestion”. (Compare Italian pepsi, from the same source.)