The English word respect is quite interesting to ponder upon. Even though we use it currently to mean admiration or regards, its origin is quite fascinating to explore.
The root word of respect comes from the Latin word, respectāre. “re” stands for reiteration and emphasis wielding dedication, and “spectāre”, indicates the action of appreciating, looking at or observing. In simpler sense, respect’s origin meant to “look back”.
Let’s take two examples to ponder upon:
The boy and girl are 10 and 12 respectively.
I have immense respect for artists.
Both the above sentences use respect. In the first sentence, it is literally asking us to look back to map the ages to the boy and girl.
In the second example, it can be understood by exploring the subjective nature of mind. If I say I respect artists, what I mean is I have an understanding from my beliefs about artists; and that idea of understanding is what I look back to whenever I think of artists. The image or abstraction that I have of artists in general is biased to be good, and hence my thoughts that arise with respect to artists is always in high regards.
