renaissance
/rɪˈnæsəns/noun, adjective
revival of art, learning, culture, or activity
From Latin re- (again) + Latin nasci (be born).
Lineage
re-
nasci
The story
Picture a European scholar opening a dusty manuscript and deciding that the ancient world has not vanished after all: it can be born again. That is the literal machinery inside renaissance—Latin re- meaning “again” joined to nasci, “to be born,” from the reconstructed PIE root *gene-, the same family behind generate and genealogy. The French expression renaissance des lettres helped name the cultural movement centered first in Florence and spreading across Europe; English recorded Renaissance in 1840. By the late nineteenth century, Renaissance man had escaped its historical cage and could describe a modern person with many talents, from scholarship to art. So Renaissance is not merely a period on a timeline—it is a linguistic resurrection, with every revival carrying a tiny echo of birth.
Words from the same roots
Sources
- Etymonlinerenaissance, re-, humanism, sapphire, primitive, medici
- Urban Dictionaryrenaissance
- Wikipediarenaissance
- Wiktionaryrenaissance, re-