Etymology of the Word Entrepreneur

This is part of my Series of Entrepreneurial Culture.

I was actually thinking about the word entrepreneur itself recently and found this entry from Wikipedia interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrepreneur

“…The word "entrepreneur" is a loanword from French. In French the verb "entreprendre" means "to undertake," with "entre" coming from the Latin word meaning "between," and "prendre" meaning "to take." .... Entreprenuer also sounds close to a sanskrit word anthaprerna which means self motivation.”

One can sometimes learn a lot from the root etymologies of words. This one seems to boil it down to its essence quite well doesn't it? Entrepreneurs evidently “undertake” things and they are “self-motivated”. It’s quite an elegant word as well. Entrepreneur. Sounds better than under-taker :)