I think “empire” and “empirical” have less to do with one another than one would guess, but ultimately there is (probably) a connection.
“empire” and “emperor” of course comes from Latin “imperium” and “imperator”, from “imperare” to command. (Harry Potter fans may wish to know that the first person singular indicative active form is “impero”, not “imperio” :-).)
“empirical” comes from Greek “empeiria” meaning “experience”.
So I guess the question is whether “imperare” is related to “empeiria” somehow. Well, yes and no. It appears that “imperare” is from “in” (preposition) + “parare” (to prepare), whereas “empeiria” is from “en” (preposition) + “peira” (a trial or attempt). Greek “en” is the equivalent of Latin “in”, so the initial bits are indeed the same.
But what about “parare” and “peira”? Those are words with quite different meanings. But they are both thought to come from PIE *per-, which has a number of meanings (note: all this stuff is conjecture, but not my conjecture). Oldest seems to be something like “first” or “front”—we get “first” from this, and “pre-”, and all sorts of other things. That seems to have given rise to “go through”, “carry forth”, etc., which is where “paro” comes from. And that seems to have given rise to “try”, “dare”, “risk”, etc., which is where “peira” comes from.
So the (partly conjectural) tree looks like this. Conjectured bits are in square brackets.
[PIE *per-, meaning things like “first” and “front”]
[PIE *per-, meaning things like “bring out”]
Latin paro, meaning “prepare”
Latin impero, meaning “command”
Latin imperium and imperator
English empire and emperor
[PIE *per-, meaning things like “try”]
Greek peira, meaning “trial” and “attempt”
Greek empeiria, meaning “experience”
Greek empeirikos, meaning “empirical”
English empirical
If you believe the PIE reconstructions then there is a common origin. But as far as actually known words goes, the oldest we’ve got is “paro”, prepare, and “peira”, attempt, and it’s not obvious prima facie that those are actually related.
I think “empire” and “empirical” have less to do with one another than one would guess, but ultimately there is (probably) a connection.
“empire” and “emperor” of course comes from Latin “imperium” and “imperator”, from “imperare” to command. (Harry Potter fans may wish to know that the first person singular indicative active form is “impero”, not “imperio” :-).)
“empirical” comes from Greek “empeiria” meaning “experience”.
So I guess the question is whether “imperare” is related to “empeiria” somehow. Well, yes and no. It appears that “imperare” is from “in” (preposition) + “parare” (to prepare), whereas “empeiria” is from “en” (preposition) + “peira” (a trial or attempt). Greek “en” is the equivalent of Latin “in”, so the initial bits are indeed the same.
But what about “parare” and “peira”? Those are words with quite different meanings. But they are both thought to come from PIE *per-, which has a number of meanings (note: all this stuff is conjecture, but not my conjecture). Oldest seems to be something like “first” or “front”—we get “first” from this, and “pre-”, and all sorts of other things. That seems to have given rise to “go through”, “carry forth”, etc., which is where “paro” comes from. And that seems to have given rise to “try”, “dare”, “risk”, etc., which is where “peira” comes from.
So the (partly conjectural) tree looks like this. Conjectured bits are in square brackets.
[PIE *per-, meaning things like “first” and “front”]
[PIE *per-, meaning things like “bring out”]
Latin paro, meaning “prepare”
Latin impero, meaning “command”
Latin imperium and imperator
English empire and emperor
[PIE *per-, meaning things like “try”]
Greek peira, meaning “trial” and “attempt”
Greek empeiria, meaning “experience”
Greek empeirikos, meaning “empirical”
English empirical
If you believe the PIE reconstructions then there is a common origin. But as far as actually known words goes, the oldest we’ve got is “paro”, prepare, and “peira”, attempt, and it’s not obvious prima facie that those are actually related.