Etymograph

English

profile

Profile comes from French profil, from Italian profilo, from profilare ‘to outline’, from pro- + filare ‘to draw a line’.

  1. Italianc. 1300–presentfilare1‘to spin, draw a line’
  2. Italianc. 1300–presentprofilare1‘to outline’
  3. Italianc. 1300–presentprofilo1‘profile’
  4. Frenchc. 1600–presentprofil1
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1984profile1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English profile
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1984, Warren Blumenfeld, Boston's Other Voice: “The book The Men with the Pink Triangles, profiling…”.

Lineage

  1. Italianc. 1300–presentfilareWiktionary, English profile‘to spin, draw a line’
  2. Italianc. 1300–presentprofilareWiktionary, English profile‘to outline’
  3. Italianc. 1300–presentprofiloWiktionary, English profile‘profile’
  4. Frenchc. 1600–presentprofilWiktionary, English profile
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1984profileWiktionary, English profile. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1984, Warren Blumenfeld, Boston's Other Voice: “The book The Men with the Pink Triangles, profiling…”

A compound of pro ‘before’ + filo ‘a line, stroke, thread’

Proto-Indo-European *pró ‘toward’

Proto-Italic *prō ‘for’

Latin pro ‘before’

Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰiH-(s-)lo- ‘sinew’

Proto-Italic *fī(s)lom

Latin fīlum ‘thread’

Latin filo ‘a line, stroke, thread’

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Today it means

noun The outermost shape, view, or edge of an object.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “profile”. 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 / Italian filare / profile