Etymograph

English

pagination

Pagination comes from Latin pagina ‘a piece of writing’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- ‘to fasten, fix’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*peh₂ǵ-1‘to fasten, fix’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEpagina2‘a piece of writing’
  3. Frenchc. 1600–presentpagination3
  4. Englishtodaypagination3

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin pagina
  2. 2 Wiktionary, French pagination
  3. 3 Wiktionary, English pagination

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*peh₂ǵ-Wiktionary, Latin pagina‘to fasten, fix’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEpaginaWiktionary, French pagination‘a piece of writing’
  3. Frenchc. 1600–presentpaginationWiktionary, English pagination
  4. EnglishtodaypaginationWiktionary, English pagination

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *peh₂ǵ- ‘to fasten, fix’

travel, pole, propaganda, compact, pale, peel, peasant, pagan, pageant, propagate, travail, pala, palisade, impinge, pectin, impactor, 28 more

through Latin pagina ‘a piece of writing’

page, 3 more

Today it means

noun The act of creating pages for a document, book, etc., or determining when to truncate text on the pages.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “pagination”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entries for Latin pagina, French pagination. 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- / pagination

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