English
animalcule
Animalcule comes from Late Latin animalculum ‘lowly or small animal’.
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEanimalculum‘lowly or small animal’
- Englishearliest quotation 1831animalcule
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEanimalculum‘lowly or small animal’
- Englishearliest quotation 1831animalcule
Earliest quotation: 1831, Thomas Carlyle, Pause: “Why, there is not a Man, or a Thing,…”
Formed from animal + -cule
Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁- ‘to breathe’
…
Latin animālis
Latin animal
Old French animal
Middle English animal ‘an animal’
English animal
The story
Animalculum is derived from Latin animal (‘animal; living creature’) + -culum (diminutive suffix); and animal from animāle, the nominative neuter singular of animālis (‘animate, living; relating to living creatures’), from anima (‘breath; life; soul, spirit’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁- (‘to breathe’)) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship). The English word is analysable as animal + -cule.
Every English word from Late Latin animalculum
Today it means
noun A sperm cell or spermatozoon; also, the embryo that was formerly thought to be contained inside a spermatozoon in a fully developed state.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Late Latin animalculum / animalcule