Being disappointed in retention of previously encountered vocabularies is one of the most reported displeasures that EFL students have faced during vocabulary acquisition so far. Since most of the English words descend from Greek and Latin roots, among the multitude of distinct strategies employed in teaching vocabulary, providing learners with an awareness of how existing words are able to be dismantled into different roots, not only generate the opportunity to let them discover the meaning of the words for themselves but also makes them capable of retrieving the targeted words easily. The present study, thus, aimed at exploring the very effect of teaching vocabulary to 59 participants who belonged to two intact classes. They were assigned to experimental and control groups. As far as the level of vocabulary proficiency was concerned, a pretest was administered to both groups. While the control group was going to acquire new words by means of dictionary, and through inferencing the meaning of unfamiliar words from text, the experimental group received treatment based on etymological analysis. After 6 weeks, an immediate posttest was administered to both experimental and control groups. The results were analyzed through one-way Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). Subsequently, a questionnaire was given to the experimental group in order to collect their opinions regarding the effectiveness of teaching vocabulary through etymology. Findings indicated that experimental group outperformed the control group. Consequently, the positive effect of this strategy and its implication in teaching vocabulary was manifested by opinions elicited from the experimental group.
