As a noun, matter is the physical substance that things are made of, or an issue or topic of concern. As a verb, to matter means to be important or significant.
From Latin “materia” meaning 'substance, stuff, timber', related to 'wood' and basic building material. It passed through Old French “matiere” into English. The sense shifted from literal building stuff to any physical substance, and then to abstract 'subject of concern'.
The jump from 'wood' to 'everything physical in the universe' shows how language stretches: one kind of stuff became 'all stuff'. When we say 'you matter', we’re using a physics word to make an emotional claim about importance.
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