STUDY-ENT

The word student was first introduced into English in the late 1300s (and has since greatly increased in usage) from the Old French word estudiant, which had  a definition very similar to today. This replaced the previous word leorningcild (equivalent to "learning-child") rather quickly, perhaps because scholars preferred the perceived erudition of a word from a Romantic language. That traces to the Latin word studiare or studere, which meant "to study" and is also the etymon of our word for "study". Through Proto-Italic, we can derive that from the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction stewd, which meant "to push or hit". The connection there is supposedly one of "pressing forward" with your studies. Let's keep pressing forward, fellow hits of etymology!