Etymologically, the word samizdat derives from sam (, "self, by oneself") and izdat (, an abbreviation of , "publishing house"), and thus means "self-published".
The Russian poet Nikolai Glazkov coined a version of the term as a pun in the 1940s when he typed copies of his poems and included the note Samsebyaizdat (Самсебяиздат, "Myself by Myself Publishers") on the front page.