English
page
Page comes from Latin pāgina ‘a piece of writing’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- ‘to attach, fix, fasten’.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*peh₂ǵ-1‘to attach’reconstructed
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEpāgina1‘a piece of writing’
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600page1
- Englishearliest quotation 1858page1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English page
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1858, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Courtship of Miles Standish: “Such was the book from whose pages she sang.”.
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*peh₂ǵ-Wiktionary, English page‘to attach’reconstructed
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEpāginaWiktionary, English page‘a piece of writing’
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600pageWiktionary, English page
- Englishearliest quotation 1858pageWiktionary, English page. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1858, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Courtship of Miles Standish: “Such was the book from whose pages she sang.”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- ‘to attach, fix, fasten’
travel, pole, peel, compact, propaganda, pale, peasant, pagan, propagate, travail, pectin, pala, palisade, impinge, impactor, 29 more
through Latin pāgina ‘a piece of writing’
Another origin of page
- Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEπαῖςpaîs‘child’uncertain
- Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEπαιδίονpaidíon‘boy, lad’uncertain
- Medieval Latinc. 600–1500pagius‘servant’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400pageby way of Italian paggio
- Englishtodaypage
From Old French page, possibly via Italian paggio, from Medieval Latin pagius (‘servant’), probably from Ancient Greek παιδίον (paidíon, “boy, lad”), from παῖς (paîs, “child”); some sources consider this unlikely and suggest instead Latin pagus (‘countryside’), in sense of "boy from the rural regions".
Today it means
noun One of the many pieces of paper bound together within a book or similar document.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “page”. 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 *peh₂ǵ- / page