modern: [16] Latin modus (source of English mode and model) meant ‘measure’. Its ablative form modō hence originally denoted ‘to the measure’, but it subsequently came to be used as an adverb meaning ‘just now’. And in postclassical times an adjective modernus was derived from it, signifying ‘of the present time’ – source, via French, of English modern. At first it was used strictly for ‘of the present moment’, but before the end of the 16th century the now familiar sense ‘of the present age’ had begun to emerge. => mode, model
