The word was first recorded in English by about 1475, from French and Latin. In 1868 the Anthropological Review used it to describe the flint tools of a prehistoric age.
French had already used the word by 1310, for a kind of cleverness or ingenuity. Behind the French form lay a Latin word, and behind that, an older Latin word formed from a prefix meaning 'in' and a verb.
In Latin, the verb behind it meant 'to build', so the older word was formed as 'building within'. That verb comes from an extended form of a Proto-Indo-European root, *stere-, meaning 'to spread', which may also lie behind a Greek word for a mattress.
DESTROY and INSTRUMENT are built on the same Latin verb as this word. DESTROY was in English by about 1300, from Old French, and the Latin word behind it meant to unbuild. INSTRUMENT also entered English around 1300, from French and Latin, first meaning a musical device.
By 1771 French was using it for manufacturing, and English followed. In 1843 the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle called its leaders 'the Captains of the World'. Today it more commonly describes a whole sector.
Eight letters.
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