Matrix

​The red pill or the blue pill? Hmmm…
 
The word matrix comes from a word which is almost unchanged since its origin—the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word mater (mother); in turn, the source of numerous words also meaning mother, notably Latin mater, Greek meter, Sanskrit matar, Old Irish mathir, Lithuanian mote, Proto-Germanic moder, Old Norse modir, Danish moder, Dutch moeder, German Mutter, and Old English modor. The word mother has been part of English since around 1200.
 
What does all this have to do with matrix? Latin mater (mother; also, source, womb) is the source of Latin matrix (a pregnant animal).
 
The word matrix (uterus, womb) came to English in the late 14th century from Old French matrice (womb, uterus) and Latin matrix. “The first clear use of the word matrix is in an English translation of the Gospel of St Luke (2:23) made in 1525 by William Tyndale” (Crystal, 2011, 95).
 
The many subsequent uses of the term matrix are from the notion of that which encloses or gives origin to something. The general sense of matrix as a place or medium in which something is developed is from the 1550s. The concept of matrix as a mould in which something is cast or shaped is from the 1620s. Matrix as an embedding or enclosing mass is from the 1640s.
 
In mathematics, a matrix is ‘a rectangular array of quantities (usually square)’ containing a set of components into which quantities can be set. In philosophy, a matrix as a logical sense of an ‘array of possible combinations of truth-values’ is attested by 1914.
 
In the 19th century, a matrix was seen as the elements that make up a network; e.g., a social or political network. In the 20th century, the term matrix management was used in the business world to mean the ways in which communication operates through a web of relationships.
 
Today, dentists, printers, and electronics engineers use the term matrix in different ways to describe aspects of their work. In the 1990s, the term matrix was used to describe the global network of electronic communication.
 
The movie with the red and blue pills, The Matrix, is from 1999.
 
Speaking etymologically about all this right now, rather than metaphorically, it would seem that the word matrix has come a long way from its origins in words for mother and womb.
 
Reference: Online Etymological Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com/
Crystal, David. (2011). The story of English in 100 words. New York: Picador.