## Etymology
From Latin stratum ('something spread or laid down'), the neuter past participle of sternere ('to spread, strew, lay flat'), from Proto-Indo-European *sterh3- ('to spread, extend').

## AI Etymology
Stratum comes from Latin stratum ('something spread or laid down'), the neuter past participle of sternere ('to spread, strew, lay flat'), from Proto-Indo-European *sterh3- ('to spread, extend'). The historical chain includes Latin stratum, Latin sternere, and Proto-Indo-European *sterh3-. The quoted older senses, "something spread or laid down", "to spread, strew, lay flat", and "to spread, extend", supply the semantic anchors for stratum. The formation is best read as participial and borrowed: the word stratum carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a layer of material, especially rock, or a level of society". English derivatives include strata and stratal; related English forms include stratify, stratification, stratosphere, and substratum. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.

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