'anti-evolutionarily' originates from English, specifically the prefix 'anti-' (from Greek 'anti-' meaning 'against') combined with 'evolutionarily' (from 'evolutionary' + adverbial suffix '-ly', where 'evolution' ultimately comes from Latin 'evolutio').

'evolution' comes from Latin 'evolutio' (from 'evolvere', 'to unroll'); it passed into English via scientific Latin and French in the 18th–19th centuries. 'evolutionary' was formed as an adjective in the 19th century; adding the suffix '-ly' produced the adverb 'evolutionarily'. The compound with the prefix 'anti-' is a modern English formation combining those elements into 'anti-evolutionarily'.

Initially the elements meant 'against' (anti-) and 'unrolling/turning out' (evolutio), referring literally to opposition to the concept of evolution; over time the assembled form has been used to mean 'in a manner opposing evolutionary theory' and functions as an adverb describing how something is done or argued.