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It means "et cetera". In Latin literally "and the rest". And I have proof.

Edit: In an archived post dated March 4, 2007, Peter H. Salus quotes an email he "just received" from Dennis Richie, co-creator of Unix, making very clear what "etc" initially stood for:

I assure you that the original contents of /etc were the "et cetera" that didn't seem to fit elsewhere. Other variants might do their own etymologies differently.

Regards,
Dennis

It means "et cetera". In Latin literally "and the rest". And I have proof.

Edit: The original link above, dated March 3, 2007 has been archived. In it Peter H. Salus quotes an email he "just received" from Dennis Richie, co-creator of Unix, making very clear what "etc" initially stood for:

I assure you that the original contents of /etc were the "et cetera" that didn't seem to fit elsewhere. Other variants might do their own etymologies differently.

Regards,
Dennis

It means "et cetera". In Latin literally "and the rest". And I have proof.

It means "et cetera". In Latin literally "and the rest". And I have proof.

Edit: In an archived post dated March 4, 2007, Peter H. Salus quotes an email he "just received" from Dennis Richie, co-creator of Unix, making very clear what "etc" initially stood for:

I assure you that the original contents of /etc were the "et cetera" that didn't seem to fit elsewhere. Other variants might do their own etymologies differently.

Regards,
Dennis

It means "et cetera". In Latin literally "and the rest". And I have evidence.

It means "et cetera". In Latin literally "and the rest". And I have proof.