English
TeX
TeX comes from Ancient Greek τέχνη ‘craft, skill, trade’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *tetḱ- ‘to create, produce’.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*tetḱ-‘to create, produce’reconstructed
- Proto-Indo-European, derivedc. 4500–2500 BCE*téḱ-sneh₂reconstructed
- Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEτέχνηtékhnē‘craft, skill, trade’
- Englishearliest quotation 1986TeX
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*tetḱ-‘to create, produce’reconstructed
- Proto-Indo-European, derivedc. 4500–2500 BCE*téḱ-sneh₂reconstructed
- Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEτέχνηtékhnē‘craft, skill, trade’
- Englishearliest quotation 1986TeX
Earliest quotation: 1986, Jacques Desarmenien, TEX for Scientific Documentation: Second European Conference: “TFFI-mode makes it possible for BibTeX to work on…”
The story
The letters of the name are meant to represent the capital Greek letters Τ (tau), Ε (epsilon), and Χ (chi), as TeX is an abbreviation of Ancient Greek τέχνη (tékhnē), which is also the root word of technical.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *tetḱ- ‘to create, produce’
architecture, arch, textile, pretext, tectonics, tassie, tela, 15 more
through Ancient Greek τέχνη ‘craft, skill, trade’
technical, technique, polytechnic, technic, technetium, 1 more
Today it means
name A digital typesetting system used primarily for the formatting of mathematical formulae.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *tetḱ- / TeX