'asyndeton' originates from Greek, specifically the word 'ἀσύνδετον' (asyndeton), where the prefix 'a-' meant 'not' and the root related to 'sund'/'syn' meant 'joined' or 'bound together'.

'asyndeton' passed into Late Latin/New Latin and then into English as a rhetorical term; the Greek ἀσύνδετον (literally 'not joined') was adapted into scholarly Latin and then adopted in English usage from the 17th century onward.

Initially it meant 'not joined' (literal sense of things not being bound together), but over time it evolved into the technical rhetorical meaning 'omission of conjunctions' used in grammar and literary description.