Entomology has passed through two languages, Greek and French, on its way to English.
Greek temnein "to cut" + en "in, inward"
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entomos "cut up, cut into small pieces," here perhaps suggesting how wasps, ants, and several other insects have pinched waists between their thorax and abdomen.
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entomon "insect," the neuter of entomos.
French -logie "study (of a thing)," itself derived from Greek -logia of the same meaning, + entomon from Greek, above; coined ca. 1764. It passed into English the same year it was coined in French.
English entomology "the study of insects," became quickly more commonly used than insectology, a word of the same meaning.
Insectology entered the English language in 1766, two years later than entomology, deriving from French insectologie, itself coined in 1744. The -logie suffix is, of course, still a direct descendant of Greek -logia, but insect derives from a Latin word, insectum "animal with a notched body," literally "having been cut inward," the neuter past participle of insectare "to cut into," from in "in" + secare "to cut." Pliny coined the word as a reference to the category of animals, as a direct translation of the Greek entomon, which had been coined by Aristotle for the same purpose.
Insect entered the English language in 1601, with Philemon Holland's translation of Pliny's Natural History.
Latin was not the only language to adopt a direct loanword translation of "cut inward" as a word for insects, although in most of these examples, the resulting words are not currently the most common word for insects in the respective language:
Russian has nasekomoe derived from sekat "cut;"
Serbo-Croatian has zareznik derived from rezati "cut;"
Welsh has trychfil derived from trychu "cut away" + mil "creature."
Iron Noder 2015, 13/30