Et cetera, usually abbreviated etc., comes from the Latin et,
meaning and, and cetera, meaning the rest. So et cetera
literally means and the rest. Etc. is best reserved for times
when (a) there is no question of what’s being omitted, or (b)
when listing every item in a large group would be unnecessary.
In this example, there’s no mystery about what etc. indicates:
All non-human primates—monkeys, gorillas, chimpanzees,
etc.—exhibit some form of tool use. And in this example, the
author uses etc. because including a fuller list would be
unnecessary: For 99 cents, users can punch in their current mood
(sad, tempted, worried, etc.). [Dallas News] When the reader
can’t know what’s being omitted and it’s not clear that there
are more items in the list, etc. may signal laziness or
dishonesty. In lazy moments, some writers use etc. when they
know of only one or two examples but want to create the
impression that there are more. Any engaged reader can see
through this trick. Here are a few examples: Cool “student sea