Chapter 3

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Let's start our shallow swim through etymology by looking at three suffixes in Modern English that are quite well-known: -logy, -nomy, and -metry.

All three of these suffixes have a Greek origin, and they haven't changed much through the centuries.

Let's start with -logy. -logy is a suffix that appears a lot in subject names in Modern English, like those in the following table.

biology	the study of living organisms
geology	the study of rocks
seismology	the study of earthquakes
zoology	the study of animals

So clearly in Modern English, -logy is the 'subject suffix'. When it appears at the end of a word, that word may refer to a 'study of' something. (Though not always - we'll get to that in a moment.)

But did -logy always mean that? Did it mean something else originally, and if so, what?

So the suffix -logy in Modern English is a suffix for academic subjects, but was originally just the Greek word for 'speech'. This is a great example of how English has accumulated so many words over the centuries - words that have quite a general meaning in one language are given a very specific meaning in English.

But let's also look at where the other part in each of the words in the table above comes from.

biology → bio + logy

The word-forming element bio- comes from the Greek bios meaning 'life'. But this originally meant specifically human life, rather than all living organisms. It's been over the last two centuries that bio- in English has changed to mean all life.

Other words derived from bios

biography → bio + graphy

in Modern English, this means 'an account of someone's life'; -graphy is from the Greek -graphia meaning 'to write' or 'to draw', so 'biography' literally means 'a description of someone's life' or 'a drawing of someone's life'

amphibian → amphi + bian

in Modern English, this refers to a kind of animal that lives both in water and on land; both parts come from Greek: amphi- meaning 'of both kinds', and -bian from bios

... and many more.

zoology → zoo + logy

The word-forming element zoo- comes from the Greek zoion meaning 'animal'.

So 'zoology' is the study of animals, rather than the study of zoos. But this makes sense when we look at the etymology of the Modern English word 'zoo' (the place with the lions and pandas). 'Zoo' is actually an abbreviation of 'zoological gardens'.

-logy not -ology

A lot of people think of the 'subject suffix' as being -ology. This is because a lot of subject names do have the extra 'o' before the 'logy' - 'biology', 'geology', 'anthropology' - but this 'o' comes from the first word element, not the second. As we've seen, there was no 'o' at the start of the word that's the origin of this suffix: lógos. So the "real" suffix is just -logy.

However, I've put the word 'real' above in double quote marks because arguably the thing that truly determines what is correct in a language is how a word or grammatical structure is used. If enough people over enough time use a particular word in a certain way, then that becomes the correct way to use that word.

And this is the case with -ology - enough people have used this suffix as the subject suffix over enough time now that it has essentially become a valid variant of the original subject suffix.

So there are two variants to the subject suffix: -logy and -ology, and which one is used for new words depends on which is easier to pronounce.

Other words with the suffix -logy

Of course, not every word that ends with -logy is the name of a subject. A good example is the word 'trilogy', meaning 'a series of three creative works such as books or films'. (The tri- in 'trilogy' comes from the Greek treis or trias meaning 'three', so the word 'trilogy' literally means 'three accounts'.) (Also, a lot of people don't know what a series of four creative works is called (because sometimes authors / film studios will split the final installment of their meant-to-be-trilogy). It's actually quadrilogy or tetralogy (depending on whether you use the Latin or Greek numbering prefixes - we'll get to that in a later chapter (also, you can see how easy it is to go off on tangents in etymology - every word is connected to an interesting fact)).)

Other words derived from lógos

Anything ending in -logue

the suffix -logue also comes from lógos; so for example, 'dialogue' is a combination of dia- meaning 'across' or 'between' and -logue meaning 'speech' - and that's exactly what dialogue is: speech between two characters

neologism → neo + logism

a neologism is a newly coined word or expression, and the word 'neologism' comes from the Greek neos meaning 'new' and of course lógos meaning 'speech' which became -logism

logic

this comes from the Greek logikós, which is derived from lógos and means 'of or pertaining to speech or reasoning'

... and many, many more.

Now let's look at the next suffix: -nomy.

While a lot of subject names end with -logy, not all of them do. Some of them end with -nomy - one of the most obvious examples of this is 'astronomy'.

Why is this? Why do some subject names end with -logy and others -nomy? What does -nomy mean?

astronomy → astro + nomy

The word-forming element 'astro-' comes from the Greek ástron meaning 'star'. So 'astronomy' means 'the laws of the stars' or 'the rules of the stars'.

Other words derived from ástron

asteroid → aster + oid

an asteroid is a small rock in space orbiting the Sun; aster is also derived from ástron and oid is from the Greek eidos meaning 'form' or 'shape', so asteroid means 'in the shape of a star'; -oid is a suffix in Modern English that's used in lots of words to mean 'in the shape of'

asterisk

an asterisk is the typographical character *; ultimately from the Greek asteriskos, the diminutive form of aster, thus meaning 'little star';

Other words with the suffix -nomy

Words that end in -nomy are less common than words that end in -logy, and the ones that do exist are often more obscure, but here are a few:

gastronomy	the art of preparing and eating good food
mythonomy	the study of myths and how they develop

Now finally let's look at -metry.

-metry appears in quite a few Modern English words, and again many of these words are used in academic subjects.

geometry	the area of mathematics concerned with the properties and relations of points, lines, surfaces, and solids
chronometry	the science of the measurement of time
symmetry	the quality of being made up of exactly similar parts either side of an axis

All of these words have a sense of being about 'measurements', and when we look at where the suffix -metry comes from, we can very clearly see why.

chronometry → chrono + metry

The word-forming element chrono- comes from the Greek khrónos (χρόνος) meaning 'time'. So 'chronometry' literally means, 'the measurement of time', which is exactly what its modern meaning is.

Other words derived from khrónos

chronological → from chronology → chrono + logy

now we're back to -logy again; chronological means 'arranged in order by time' in Modern English

synchronise → syn + chron + ise

syn is from the Greek syn meaning 'together'; Greek synkhrónizein meant 'to be of the same time'

That's it for this chapter!

We've looked at quite a lot: we looked at three Modern English suffixes that all appear in words to do with academic subjects; all three suffixes had a similar origin - all were from Greek; all three suffixes retain a similar meaning in Modern English to what they mean in Greek; we've also looked at lots of other words that contain these suffixes, and found lots more word-forming elements that have Greek origins, giving a sense of how new words can be formed from word-forming elements.

Etymology is rarely this straightforward, however. Sometimes a word will pass through several different languages and change form and meaning many times before finding its way to Modern English.

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