model

\ \ [16] Latin modus meant originally ‘measure’ (it came from the same Indo- European base, *met-, *med-, as produced English measure and metre). It subsequently spread out semantically to ‘size’, ‘limit’, ‘way, method’, and ‘rhythm, harmony’. From it was derived the diminutive form modulus, source of English modulate [16], module [16], and mould ‘form’. It was altered in Vulgar Latin to *modellus, and passed into English via Italian modello and early modern French modelle. Its original application in English was to an ‘architect’s plans’, but the familiar modern sense ‘three-dimensional representation’ is recorded as early as the start of the 17th century. The notion of an ‘artist’s model’ emerged in the late 17th century, but a ‘model who shows off clothes’ is an early 20th-century development.

\ \ Other English descendants of modus include modern, modicum [15], modify [14], and of course mode [16] itself (of which mood ‘set of verb forms’ is an alteration).

\ \ Cf.⇒ MEASURE, METE, METRE, MODE, MODERN, MODULATE, MOOD, MOULD