Etymograph

English

segment

Segment comes from Latin segmentum ‘a piece cut off, a strip, segment of the…’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *sek-.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*sek-1‘to cut’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*sekaō1‘to cut’reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsecō2as secāre‘to cut’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsegmentum2‘a piece cut off, a strip, segment of the earth, a strip of tinsel’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1992segment2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin seco
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English segment
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1992, Rudolf Mathias Schuster, Chicago: “In Lejeuneaceae vegetative branches normally originate from the basiscopic…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*sek-Wiktionary, Latin seco‘to cut’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*sekaōWiktionary, Latin seco‘to cut’reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsecōWiktionary, English segmentas secāre‘to cut’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEsegmentumWiktionary, English segment‘a piece cut off, a strip, segment of the earth, a strip of tinsel’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1992segmentWiktionary, English segment. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1992, Rudolf Mathias Schuster, Chicago: “In Lejeuneaceae vegetative branches normally originate from the basiscopic…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *sek- ‘to cut’

saw, design, sign, ship, seal, sack, scarlet, sawyer, sax, shingle, scythe, sich, sigil, desiccation, sedge, sain, desiccant, 59 more

through Proto-Italic *sekaō ‘to cut’

sexuality, homosexual, dissection, 18 more

through Latin secō ‘to cut’

risk, sex, section, sexual, insect, sickle, het, dissect, brassica, seg, 21 more

Today it means

noun A length of some object.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “segment”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin seco. 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 *sek- / segment

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