English
test
Test comes from Old French test ‘an earthen pot for trying metals’, from Latin testum ‘earthen vessel’; the exam sense is a metaphor.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtestum‘earthen vessel, earthen pot’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400test‘an earthen vessel’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500test
- Englishearliest quotation 1675test
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtestum‘earthen vessel, earthen pot’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400test‘an earthen vessel’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500test
- Englishearliest quotation 1675test
Earliest quotation: 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […]: “Who would excel, when few can make a test…”
The story
The examination sense came via metaphor of the metallurgical sense: the way a metallurgist puts to the test their gold, a teacher may put to the test their students' knowledge.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *ters- ‘dry’
territory, inter, territorial, terrain, terrace, thirst, terra, terrier, terrestrial, fossa, fosse, terroir, terrine, 42 more
through Latin torreō ‘to burn, parch’
Today it means
noun A challenge, trial.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin testum / test