Origin and history of idea

idea(n.)

late 14c., "archetype, concept of a thing in the mind of God," from Latin idea "Platonic idea, archetype," a word in philosophy, the word (Cicero writes it in Greek) and the idea taken from Greek idea "form; the look of a thing; a kind, sort, nature; mode, fashion," in logic, "a class, kind, sort, species," from idein "to see," from PIE *wid-es-ya-, suffixed form of root *weid- "to see."

In Platonic philosophy, "an archetype, or pure immaterial pattern, of which the individual objects in any one natural class are but the imperfect copies, and by participation in which they have their being" [Century Dictionary].

Meaning "mental image or picture" is from 1610s (the Greek word for it was ennoia, originally "act of thinking"), as is the sense "concept of something to be done; concept of what ought to be, differing from what is observed." Sense of "result of thinking" first recorded 1640s.

Idée fixe (1836) is from French, literally "fixed idea." Through Latin the word passed into Dutch, German, Danish as idee, which also is found in English dialects. The philosophical sense has been somewhat further elaborated since 17c. by Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant. Colloquial big idea (as in what's the ...) is from 1908.

also from late 14c.

Entries linking to idea

history(n.)

late 14c., historie, "relation of incidents" (true or false), from Old French estoire, estorie "story; chronicle, history" (12c., Modern French histoire), from Latin historia "narrative of past events, account, tale, story," from Greek historia "a learning or knowing by inquiry; an account of one's inquiries; knowledge, account, historical account, record, narrative."

This, along with verb historein "be witness or expert; give testimony, recount; find out, search, inquire," are derivatives of histōr "knowing, expert; witness" (as in hyperhistor "knowing all too well"), reconstructed to be from PIE *wid-tor-, from root *weid- "to see," hence "to know" [Watkins].

The word itself, but especially the derivations [historein, historia] that arose in Ionic, have spread over the Hellenic and Hellenistic world together with Ionic science and philosophy. [Beekes]

Thus it is related etymologically to Greek idein "to see," eidenai "to know," and to idea and vision.

In Middle English it was not differentiated from story (n.1). The general sense of "narrative record of past events" in English probably is attested late 15c. The meaning "recorded events of the past" also is from late 15c., as is use of the word in reference to a branch of knowledge. The meaning "a historical play or drama" is from 1590s.

The sense of "systematic account (without reference to time) of a set of natural phenomena" (1560s) is now obsolete except in natural history (as late as the 1880s county histories in the U.S. included lists of birds and fishes and illustrations of local slugs and freshwater clams).

The meaning "an eventful career, a past worthy of note" (a woman with a history) is from 1852. To make history "be notably engaged in public events" is from 1862.

History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us. [Johan Huizinga, "The Task of the Cultural Historian"]

History is more or less bunk [Henry Ford, Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1916]

One difference between history and imaginative literature ... is that history neither anticipates nor satisfies our curiosity, whereas literature does. [Guy Davenport, "Wheel Ruts," 1996]

ideagenous(adj.)

"generating or giving rise to ideas," 1839; see idea + -genous. A word from early psychology, apparently coined by Dr. Thomas Laycock, house surgeon to York County Hospital [Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. lii].