Definition of "etymological" [et•y•mo•log•ic•al]

• Of or relating to etymology or based on the principles of etymology. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The word chowder has its etymological roots in the Latin word caldaria, meaning a place to warm things and later a cooking pot."
• "Incidentally, Tennyson’s “samite” (inMorte d’Arthur, as worn by the disembodied arm that belongs to the Lady of the Lake) was a brilliantly contrived exercise in etymological archaeology, and strictly speakingmeant (via the Latin samitum and, in turn, the Greek hexamiton) a six-ply silk brocade incorporating gold and silver threads, much in vogue during the Middle Ages, but let us not be deflected."
• "Ne + cedere is the root = “not” + “withdraw” — in other words the etymological premise of the idea in the word is a PRESUMPTION of deference or cession of power, which cession or deference is foregone or abandoned ONLY in the “necessary” case and then only to the degree “proper” or “belonging to” the isolated occasion or circumstance giving rise to the necessity that overcomes the presumption."