criteria

The word 'criteria' is the plural of 'criterion', which entered English in the 17th century from the Greek word 'kritērion', meaning "a means for judging, standard". This Greek term is derived from 'kritēs', meaning "judge", which itself comes from the verb 'krinein', "to decide, to judge". The core concept of judging or separating to make a decision is ancient, traceable to the Proto-Indo-European root krei-, "to sieve, discriminate, distinguish". Thus, the journey from the concrete act of sifting or separating to the abstract modern meaning of a standard for making judgments is clear. The plural form 'criteria' has become so common in English that it is often mistakenly used as a singular noun.

The word 'criteria' is a plural form borrowed directly from Greek. It does not segment into meaningful English substrings that are productive morphemes in the modern word. The singular form 'criterion' can be analyzed as coming from the Greek root 'kritēs' (judge) and the suffix '-ērion' (denoting a means or place for an action).