plebiscite
‘a vote in which a population exercises the right of national self-determination’
Lexical development traced from the Tamil root:
E. plebiscit, plébiscite < F. plébiscite < Lat. plebiscitum ‘a decree or resolution of the people’ < plebs ‘the common people’ + scitum ‘decree’ < sciscere ‘to assent, vote for, approve’ < scire ‘to know’ < O.F. science ‘knowledge, learning, application; corpus of human knowledge’ < Lat. scientia ‘knowledge, a knowing; expertness’ < sciens ‘intelligent, skilled’ < scire ‘to know’ < scindere ‘to cut, divide’ < site < skei- < Tamil kappu