Origin and etymology of the English word "Arduous".


The English language is not an old one. It is nearly five hundred years old.  It has borrowed words from German, French and other European languages which are older than English.  Greek and Latin are still older than these European languages.  It is assumed that the Latin language is 2000 years old whereas the Greek language is 2700 years old.  So we can say that the European languages have their origin in the Latin and Greek. But what is the origin of Latin and Greek?  From where these languages borrowed their words?  An etymologist is one who traces the origin of a word to its roots.

Today's word is "arduous".  The English word Arduous comes from Latin arduus meaning high, steep and hence difficult and strenuous;  In Old Ireland language, ard means high.

It is interesting to know that the origin of all the above words is the Sanskrit word ūrdhvás meaning upright.  Ūrdhva (ऊर्ध्व) is a Sanskrit word referring to “upwards”.  Also, in Greek ardis is a point.

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