Other forms: effects
An effect is the change something causes. A side effect, take effect, the effect on sales.
The word to watch is affect: affect is nearly always the verb and effect nearly always the noun, and the exception — to effect a change, meaning to bring it about — is what makes the pair so troublesome. Personal effects means belongings. Note that the Latin means accomplished.
1nouneffectThe change something causes.
“The medicine had no effect on his headache.”
2nounbelongingsBelongings, in the plural.
“The prisoner's effects, a watch and a wallet, were returned to him on his release.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
effect is a result.
Latin effectus comes from efficere, to accomplish — ex plus facere, to make. Efficient and fact come from the same making.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeh₁-
Old French
effect
Middle English
effect
English, today
effect
Built from
From Middle English effect, from Old French effect. Of the noun: from Middle English effect, from Old French effect (modern French effet), from Latin effectus (“an effect, tendency, purpose”), from efficiō (“accomplish, complete, effect”); see effect as a verb. Displaced Old English fremming, fremednes from fremman. From Middle English effecten, from Medieval Latin effectuō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA