What is etymology

For linguistics, etymology is the study of history of words and how their form and meaning have changed over time. However, knowing basics of etymology is helpful for regular English learners to understand words as well as memorize them.

1. Prefixes, roots, and suffixes are the building blocks of words

I personally interpret these prefixes, roots and suffixes as the initial blocks in language. As the language evolved, people created new words by making different combinations of these blocks.