Digging up the etymological past of “history”

Summer break is coming to an end. School is coming back into session. And I have just the thing—just the thing—to get kids running faster than Sha’Carri Richardson to their desks from pools and backyards, game consoles and YouTube streams, summer jobs and 1pm wake-ups. 

Unsolicited etymology facts! About the names of school subjects! 

In this first post of a sometime series on origins of the names of school subjects and disciplines, let’s dig up the etymological past of history. No need to take notes. There won’t be any homework or tests. But hey, I always reserve the right to issue a pop quiz. 

From the archives: the surprisingly “leisurely” roots of school.

The story of history

Recorded history of history in English begins in Old English. Emphasis on old.

Evidence of history begins back at a time before we have any certain dates. Back at time when most of our written accounts were religious texts, official documents, translations. Back when many words borrowed from Latin—as we will see in the chronicles of history—were what are known as learned loanwords. 

In Old English, history is recorded in the form of istoria and referred, not unlike today, to a written narrative of significant, chronological events of a place, subject, or person’s life. 

French (historie, histoire) and Latin (historia) influenced the passage of history into English. The sense of these French forms emphasize “chronicle” or “account a person’s life”; the Latin, “investigation, inquiry, account.” 

The French is a chapter that comes after Latin in our etymological history book—and the Latin just copied Greek the ἱστορία (istoria), “a learning by inquiry, an account of one’s inquiries, inquiry narrative, history.” 

Ancient Greek history loves to repeat itself in Latin. Soooo original, Latin.

The Greek ἱστορία derives from ἴστωρ (istor), which meant “a wise man, one who knows right, judge” as a noun and “knowing” as an adjective, based on the verb οἶδα (oida), “to know.” The English wit and wise are cousins to the Greek οἶδα. So are words like idea and vision.

The history of story

Story. History. Story. History. 👀 👀

Like me, maybe you’ve been darting your eyes back and forth between the form and meaning of story and history, wondering, “Do these two words have some history?” 

Why, yes! Story is just a shortened form of history. It comes via French (storie, estoire) via post-classical Latin storia, from historia. Both the Latin and French had senses of “tale, narrative, story,” among other meanings. 

Early on in English, story and history overlapped in meaning “a written account of past events.” Around the 1400–1500s, they appear to differentiate, with a story more conveying some entertaining narrative—imaginary or real—and history focusing on what’s believed to be factual pasts and the discipline of accounting for them therein. 

Past meanings of story as “legend”—which are typically a fantastical tale of a figure believed to have been historical—likely broadened that “imaginary” scope of story. 

Wise women, too

Today, history is—and, historically, has been—widely taught under the broader curricula of social studies, which also includes economics, geography, and civics. The National Council of Social Studies provides an interesting, well, history of the subject in the US here.  (I told you I had just the thing to get kids positively leaping back into the classroom!)

The Oxford English Dictionary first cites the phrase social studies in an 1835 translation of French philosopher Auguste Comte’s Course of Positive Philosophy by Harriet Martineau. And her story—a 19th century English polymath and abolitionist who blazed trails as a wise woman in her day—is the stuff of legends, to my wit.