One way to hold this word: every word you say has a past life. It started somewhere, in some language, meaning something a little different, and it has been passed from mouth to mouth ever since. That past life is the thing itself. From there, two other uses grow: the work of digging the past up, and the short note that records what was dug up.
From the word’s history
The Wiktionary tree for this word runs Ancient Greek etumos plus logos, into Greek etumologia, then Latin etymologia, Old French ethimologie and Middle English ethymologie. The two Greek parts are generally understood as the word's own true shape and an account or study of something.
Wiktionary 的詞源樹顯示這個字由兩段希臘成分組成：ἔτυμος 加 λόγος，再經拉丁文 etymologia、古法文 ethimologie、中古英文 ethymologie 進入英文。這兩段成分一般被理解為「字原本真正的樣子」和「說法、學問」，正好對上今天的畫面：把字原本的樣子找出來，再說出來。
Wiktionary, "etymology"
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。