'emotivism' originates from English, formed from 'emotive' + the suffix '-ism' in the early 20th century, where 'emotive' is related to 'emotion'.

'emotive' developed from 'emotion', which comes from Latin 'emovere' (from 'e-' = 'out' and 'movere' = 'to move') via Old French/Medieval Latin 'emotio' and Middle English 'emotion'; the compound 'emotivism' was coined later to name the ethical theory (popularized by philosophers such as A. J. Ayer and C. L. Stevenson).

Initially the root referred to movement or stirring of feeling ('emotion'); over time the derived term '-ism' created a label for the philosophical view that moral sentences express emotion rather than describe facts.