What is the etymology of the word "individual"?

Question

I looked in the dictionary and it supposedly comes from the Latin "individuus," meaning "not divisible". I find it a bit odd that while reading my Anatomy and Physiology text, I found a statement saying that the word atom comes from the Greek word meaning "not divisible".

Answer 1

individual Look up individual at Dictionary.com
"a single object or thing," 1605, from M.L. individualis, from L. individuus "indivisible," from in- "not" + dividuus "divisible," from dividere "divide." Colloquial sense of "person" is attested from 1742. As an adj., used from c.1425 meaning "one and indivisible" (with ref. to the Trinity). Sense of "single, separate" is 1613; meaning "intended for one person" is from 1889. Individualism "self-centered feeling" is from 1827; as a social philosophy (opposed to communism and socialism) first attested 1851 in writings of J.S. Mill. Individuality "the aggregate of one's idiosyncrasies" is from 1614.

Answer 2

Why is that odd? "A"-means "not" and "tomos" means "cut." Like, radial keratotomy means a radial cut of the keratos (cornea.)

Individual is Latin. Atom is Greek. Well, atom is a made-up word using Greek word parts. See, when there was a bunch of scientific discovery and inventions and stuff in, oh, the 1800s, there were a bunch of things that needed names. So, people took Greek words and put them together to name the new discoveries. Greek is a "prestige language", meaning that it sounds properly science-y and learned and school-y. If you know Greek, you're thought to be more prestigious academically.

(One of the reasons why I took Greek.)

But atom...not really an Ancient Greek concept. Ancient Greeks thought that things were made up of the four humors (melancholy, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm) and phlogiston, which is kind of a "flame" sorta thing. Their science, while creative and not too shabby for the time, was awfully sketchy. So they hadn't really thought of atoms and molecules and stuff like that.

As far as Greek and Latin medical terms, Greek terms tend to be used for diseases, but Latin terms are often used for internal organs and structures. Greeks did NO surgery. They certainly didn't do autopsies and dissections. (Though "autopsy" is Greek. It means "see for myself.")

Another case of cognates would be "insect" versus "entomology." Insect means "in pieces," referring to the fact that insects have segmented bodies. But entomology is the study of insects, meaning, "study of things in segments." En-"in", "tomo"--cut, "logy"--study.

Wheeee! Isn't etymology fun?

Answer 3

Individual derives from latin ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/individual )
Neologisms(taking old words to form new ones that sound like old) are often in science, but in the case of atom, the word existed in antiquity, although it was not given the very exact and precise definition it is given today in science, and especially chemistry. It does mean "without cut" in ancient greek (τομή -tomi is the cut, and the -ος suffix is that of a masculine word).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom#History_of_atomic_theory_and_discovery_of_atomic_structure