'archeozoic' originates from Greek, specifically the elements 'archaios' meaning 'ancient' and 'zoē' meaning 'life', with the suffix '-ic' meaning 'pertaining to'.

'archeozoic' was formed in the 19th century by combining Greek roots 'archaios' + 'zoē' to denote the earliest life/age on Earth; it was used in historical geology as 'Archeozoic' to name an era, but later geological nomenclature shifted toward terms like 'Archean' and 'Precambrian'.

Initially, it meant 'pertaining to the earliest (ancient) life or the earliest geologic time'; over time the term became less used in formal stratigraphy and was largely replaced by more precisely defined units (e.g., 'Archean'), though the adjective sense ('very ancient') can still appear.