Language Of Confusion: Armed, Part II

More words that are from the Proto Indo European ar-, to fit together. As usual, they will be weird.
 
It might surprise you that art is from the same place as arm, but it is. It showed up in the early thirteenth century meaning skill, moving on to mean skill in learning or science, then human workmanship, and finally in the seventeenth century creative arts. Yes, it really took that long! It comes from the Old French art and classical Latin artem, which could mean a work of art or a skill. That’s then from the PIE ar-ti, which is from ar-, to fit together. Art… fits together!
 
Obviously artist is from there, though with a slightly different origin. It showed up in the late sixteenth century from the French artiste and Italian artista, which is from the Latin ars, from ar-. There’s also artisan (though very specifically not artesian) which showed up in the mid sixteenth century meaning a craftsman, coming from the Italian artigiano, and Vulgar Latin artitianus. That’s from the classical Latin artitus, from the verb artire, also from ar.
 
Article is pretty old, having shown up in the thirteenth century, meaning the separate parts of anything written, then the grammar usage in the sixteenth century, and finally a composition in a journal in the eighteenth century. It comes from the Old French article, and classical Latin articulus, which meant article but also a joint, and that’s from ar. Then we have articulate, which showed up in the late sixteenth century meaning speech divided into parts, then clear and distinct. And that just happens to also be from articulus, too.
 
Artifact is fairly recent, having shown up in 1821 meaning something modified by human art. It’s from the Italian artefatto, which is a mix of the Latin arte, by art, and factum, done. An artifact is done by art, and then in 1885 people started to use it in archeology, and now we have that. Artificial stayed closer to the original meaning, and it’s older too, having shown up in the late fourteenth century. It’s from the Old French artificial, classical Latin artificialis, which can be traced to ars and ar-.

The takeaway here is that artifact and artificial are closely related, and artisan and artesian are absolutely NOT.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Encyclopaedia Britannica