Introduction - Logos, the word for word

This blog will be dedicated to learning about the Latin and Greek roots of words.  Once you know these roots, the language you speak takes on so much more meaning, because you hear the ancient clues about meaning in the words you speak.

Today's root:  Logos.   Very appropriately, the Ancient Greek word for... "word."

In English, we use this word as a suffix to mean "the study of", or more literally, "words about..."

Anthropology -- from Greek Anthropos "Human Beings" + Logos = "The Study of Human Beings and their Cuture"

Biology -- from Greek Bios "Life" + Logos  = "The Study of Life."

Geology -- from Greek Geo "Earth" + Logos = The Study of the Earth."

Psychology -- from Greek Psyche "Mind" + Logos = "The Study of the Mind."

Zoology -- from Greek Zoon "Animal" + Logos = "The Study of Animals."

Our word Zoo, is short for Zoological Garden.


A couple more words that come from Logos:

Monologue -- Greek Monos "Alone" + Logos "Word" = "Words spoken alone"

Philology -- Greek Philos "Love" + Logos "Word" = "Love of Words."  Philology is the study of words.

That's enough for today!