Disco is the shortened form of discotheque, a French word meaning something like “nightclub with recorded dance music”. Discotheque was borrowed into most European languages (e.g. German Diskothek), as well as English, but it lasted just a short time in our language before being drastically shortened to disco. Originally it meant just the place where the music was played, but it soon was applied to the music as well.

The French word discotheque was itself borrowed from Italian discoteca, which meant “music library” (from disco, phonograph record, and -teca, by analogy with biblioteca, a book (biblio)-library). Thus the English clipping, disco, is identical with the original Italian word for phonograph record. This word refers to the disk-shape of the record, as you might expect.

Disco, in turn, is the decendant of Latin discus (yes, the round flat thing that’s thrown), which was borrowed from Greek discos. Discos comes from the Proto Indo European root deik, meaning “to throw”, which is also the ancestor of teach, token, dictate, verdict, abdicate, index, judge, paradigm, and revenge, among many others.

As you might expect, the phonosemantics of disco reflect this throwing motion. From “d”, the doorway or decision — perhaps referring to the hand’s release — disco moves up, light and tense (short “i”) with strong energy towards a target (”s”); the “k” may indicate the constrained, spinning motion. The final long “o” gives disco it a grounded, earthy quality (a strong bass-line?).

Thanks to Nio for suggesting this word of the day.

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