How Can I Determine The Origin Of A Word?

The first part of a word, often called the "prefix" may give a clue to its origin. The prefix "tele-," for example, may indicate that the word has been formed from Greek. So we have "telegram," meaning "something written from a distance," and "telescope," which means "looking from a distance." The word "television" is a hybrid, the first part being from Greek and the final part from Latin. Basically, it means "seeing from a distance," which is exactly what we are doing when we look at a TV set.

"Pan-" is another Greek prefix. We have it in the word "pantheon," meaning "all gods." We also have it in the word "pandemonium." Do you know what this word means literally? "All demons"; and that is what it seems like when there is pandemonium.

The final part of a word, or "suffix," as linguists call it, often helps us to identify the word's origin. You are sure to have noticed that many words end in "-logy," such as "archaeology," "anthropology," "biology" and "geology." Since the Greeks used the word logia to mean "speaking," "discussion" or "study," we can see that "archaeology" means "study of ancient things," "anthropology" means "study of man," "biology" means "study of life," and "geology" means "study of the earth."