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Where does��student come from?

The word student entered English around 1350–1400. It ultimately derives from the Latin ���ٳܻ�ŧ����. The meaning of this verb is one we think will resonate with a lot of actual students out there: “to take pains.” No, we’re not making this up: a student, etymologically speaking, can be understood a “pains-taker”!In Latin, ���ٳܻ�ŧ���� had many other senses, though, and ones that some students may have a harder time relating to. ���ٳܻ�ŧ���� could also mean “to desire, be eager for, be enthusiastic about, busy oneself with, apply oneself to, be diligent, pursue, study.” The underlying idea of student, then, is about striving—for new knowledge and abilities. It’s about that mix of hard work and passion. Isn’t that inspirational?Dig deeperWe don’t think you have to be a student of etymology to make the connection between student and study. Like student, the verb study also comes from the Latin ���ٳܻ�ŧ����. The noun study—as in The scientists conducted a sleep study or Her favorite room of her house is the study—is also related to ���ٳܻ�ŧ���� and is more immediately derived from the Latin noun studium, meaning “zeal, inclination,” among other senses. But not all connections between words are so obvious. Consider student and tweezers. Would you have guessed this unlikely pair of words share a common root? Let’s, um, pick this apart.Tweezers are small pincers or nippers for plucking our hairs, extracting splinters, picking up small objects, and so forth. The word entered English in the mid-1600s, based on tweeze, an obsolete noun meaning “case of surgical instruments,” which contained what we now call tweezers.Losing its initial E along the way, tweeze comes from etweese, which is an English rendering of the French etui, a type of small case used to hold needles, cosmetic instruments, and the like. Etui can ultimately be traced back to the Latin ����ū�徱�����, “to treat with care,” related to the same ���ٳܻ�ŧ����. This is how student is related to, of all things, tweezers.