What does it mean to respect someone or something? When trying to understand a complex reality, it's helpful to look at the word's etymology. The word "respect" is from the Latin respectus, which literally means "regard," with the sense of the "act of looking back at one," and the past participle respicere, meaning "look back at, regard, consider." (See Douglas Harper's Online Etymological Dictionary.)
This "act of looking back" conn