Etymograph

English

nutrient

Nutrient comes from Latin nūtriēns ‘feeding (off of), nourishing (from)’, from Proto-Indo-European *snew-tr-ih₂ ‘female nurser’, and ultimately from *(s)neh₂- ‘to swim’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*(s)neh₂-1‘to swim’root named by Wiktionary
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*snew-tr-ih₂2‘female nurser’reconstructed
  3. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*snoutrjō2reconstructed
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEnūtriō1‘to suckle, nourish, foster’
  5. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEnūtriēns1‘feeding (off of), nourishing (from)’present participle of nūtriō
  6. Englishearliest quotation 2012nutrient1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English nutrient
  2. 2 Wiktionary, Latin nutrio
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2012, George Monbiot, Guardian Weekly: “Even second-generation biofuels, made from crop wastes or wood,…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*(s)neh₂-Wiktionary, English nutrient‘to swim’root named by Wiktionary
  2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*snew-tr-ih₂Wiktionary, Latin nutrio‘female nurser’reconstructed
  3. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*snoutrjōWiktionary, Latin nutrioreconstructed
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEnūtriōWiktionary, English nutrient‘to suckle, nourish, foster’
  5. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEnūtriēnsWiktionary, English nutrient‘feeding (off of), nourishing (from)’present participle of nūtriō
  6. Englishearliest quotation 2012nutrientWiktionary, English nutrient. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2012, George Monbiot, Guardian Weekly: “Even second-generation biofuels, made from crop wastes or wood,…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *(s)neh₂- ‘to swim’

naval, navigation, insulin, navigate, nausea, navigator, insular, navigable, nao, nau, insula, astronautics, 23 more

through Proto-Italic *snoutrjō

nourishment, 4 more

through Latin nūtriō ‘to suckle, nourish, foster’

nurse, nurture, nourish, 5 more

Today it means

noun A source of nourishment, such as food, that can be metabolized by an organism to give energy and build tissue.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “nutrient”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin nutrio. 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 *(s)neh₂- / nutrient

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