Etymograph

English

motivology

Motivology comes from Ancient Greek λόγος ‘that which is said: word, sentence, speech,…’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- ‘to gather, collect, with derivatives meaning…’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*leǵ-1‘to gather, collect, with derivatives meaning to speak by carefully selecting one's words’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*lóǵos1reconstructed
  3. Proto-Hellenicc. 2200–1600 BCE*lógos1reconstructed
  4. Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEλόγος1lógos‘that which is said: word, sentence, speech, story, debate, utterance, argument’
  5. Englishtodaymotivology1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English motivology

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*leǵ-Wiktionary, English motivology‘to gather, collect, with derivatives meaning to speak by carefully selecting one's words’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*lóǵosWiktionary, English motivologyreconstructed
  3. Proto-Hellenicc. 2200–1600 BCE*lógosWiktionary, English motivologyreconstructed
  4. Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEλόγοςWiktionary, English motivologylógos‘that which is said: word, sentence, speech, story, debate, utterance, argument’
  5. EnglishtodaymotivologyWiktionary, English motivology

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- ‘to gather, collect, with derivatives meaning…’

election, collection, technology, lesson, select, elite, eligible, collect, elect, elegant, legion, coil, negligence, catalogue, negligible, negligent, leach, diligent, lexicon, lexical, cull, epilogue, astrology, dialectic, alexia, lignite, lexis, legation, lignin, gynecologist, cosmology, ineligibility, dialogic, 148 more

through Proto-Hellenic *lógos

archaeological, pathological, astrological, homologous, pathophysiology, etymology, psychopathology, neurophysiology, bacteriological, histopathology, 100 more

through Ancient Greek λόγος ‘that which is said: word, sentence, speech,…’

logic, apology, trilogy, analogy, sociology, terminology, logos, physiology, pathology, prologue, archaeologist, pathologist, monologue, logistic, eulogy, epistemology, entomology, apologia, bacteriology, etiology, syllogism, bacteriologist, 109 more

Today it means

noun The psychological study of people's motives.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “motivology”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- / motivology

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