Relict comes from Latin relictus, past participle of relinquere ('to leave behind, abandon'), from re- ('back') + linquere ('to leave'). The historical chain includes Latin relictus, Latin relinquere, Latin linquere, and Proto-Indo-European *leikʷ-. The quoted older senses, "to leave behind, abandon", "back", and "to leave", supply the semantic anchors for relict. The formation is best read as compound, participial, and borrowed: the word relict carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a surviving remnant of a former population or species". Related English forms include relic, relinquish, and derelict. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.