English
modify
Modify comes from Latin modificare ‘to limit, control, regulate, deponent’, and goes back to modificari ‘to measure off, set bound to, moderate’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmodificari‘to measure off, set bound to, moderate’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEmodificare‘to limit, control, regulate, deponent’
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600modifier
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500modifien
- Englishearliest quotation 1977modify
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmodificari‘to measure off, set bound to, moderate’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEmodificare‘to limit, control, regulate, deponent’
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600modifier
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500modifien
- Englishearliest quotation 1977modify
Earliest quotation: 1977, Linda R. Waugh: “There is inherently no ordering to the modification and…”
A compound of modus ‘measure’ + facere ‘to make’
Proto-Indo-European *med- ‘to measure’
Proto-Indo-European *mod-ós ‘measure’
Proto-Italic *modos
Latin modus ‘measure’
Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁k-
Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₁kyéti
Proto-Italic *θakjō
Proto-Italic *fakjō ‘to make’
Latin faciō ‘to make’
Every English word from Latin modificari
Today it means
verb To change part of.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin modificari / modify