Thread:User talk:CodeCat/Reversion of my merger of the etymologies of "loop"/reply

The noun is derived from the verb, so that is its etymology. Showing the etymology of the verb as the etymology of the noun is misleading because it gives the impression that the noun was also descended through that same path when it clearly wasn't. The noun didn't even exist for most of that history, and was only created recently, so clearly its etymology is not the same.

If the noun were derived from the verb via a suffix, then we'd show this suffix but not repeat the entire etymology of the verb. We should do the same if the noun is derived without suffixation. Linguists call this a "zero derivation", and it's a derivational process just like a suffix might be. It creates a new word, with its own history/etymology. In fact, perhaps we should start indicating and categorising zero derivations as such.