Follow the etymological path of acolyte back
far enough and you'll arrive at kéleuthos, a Greek noun that means
"path" and that is itself the parent of akólouthos, an
adjective that means "following." Akólouthos traveled
from Greek, leaving offspring in Medieval Latin and Anglo-French; its English
descendant, acolyte, emerged in the 14th century. Originally, acolyte was
exclusively a term for a person who assisted a priest at Mass, but by the 19th
century, the word had acquired additional meanings, among them "attendant
body, satellite" (a meaning used in astronomy) and "attendant
insect" (a zoological sense), as well as the general meaning
"assistant" or "sidekick."
