'axisymmetrical' originates from New Latin/Modern English, combining the noun 'axis' (from Latin 'axis', from Greek 'axōn') meaning 'axle, axis' and the adjective 'symmetrical' (from Greek 'summetrikos' via Latin 'symmetria') meaning 'measured together' or 'symmetry'.

'axis' came into English from Latin 'axis' (itself from Greek 'axōn'), and 'symmetrical' derives from Greek 'summetros'/'summetria' via Latin and French; these elements were joined in English to form compounds such as 'axisymmetric' and the adjective 'axisymmetrical' in technical use in the 19th–20th centuries.

Initially the elements referred separately to 'axis' and to 'symmetry'; over time the compounded form came to specifically denote 'symmetry around an axis' as a technical descriptor in physics and engineering.