Words

Video

VID-ee-oh
Moving images on a screen, from Latin videre, to see, first-person: video literally means I see.
Documented

I see, therefore it broadcasts

Latin video, I see, from videre. Adopted in 1930s television engineering as a noun for the picture signal, video versus audio (I hear). The vid- family is enormous: vision, visible, revise, supervise, evidence, and through the Germanic twin root, wise and wit.

Assessment: Documented: the engineering adoption is dated; the conjugation is classroom Latin.
Stories

The watcher watched

The irony the surveillance era noticed: video began as what I do and became what is done to me. CCTV, video evidence, bodycams: the first-person verb now mostly operates in third person, on the subject, without asking.

Assessment: Stories: the flip is real usage; the verb has not changed conjugation, only allegiance.
Interesting claims

Wit and the seer

Videre's PIE root *weid- (to see) also spawned, through Germanic, wise, wit, witness, and guide. Seeing and knowing are the same root across the family: Sanskrit veda (knowledge, the sacred texts), Greek idea (form, thing seen). Every video call runs on the oldest equation in the language: to see is to know.

Assessment: Interesting: veda, idea, and video as cousins is standard comparative philology.
Sources and further reading
  1. Oxford English Dictionary, 'video,' television engineering usage, 1930s
  2. Lewis & Short, 'videre'
  3. Watkins, American Heritage Indo-European Roots, *weid-
Worth asking

Who is the I in video, and when did seeing become being seen?

Open in the interactive archive
GR8YFILES · competing origin stories, labeled by the strength of their evidence · readers 14+