European Words With Greek Roots by Hobbits

By facebooker_2003174739798737

  • Vernacular borrowings

    Some Greek words were borrowed into Latin and its descendants, the Romance languages. English often received these words from French. Their phonetic and orthographic form has sometimes changed considerably. For instance, place was borrowed both by Old English and by French from Latin platea, itself borrowed from Greek πλατεία (ὁδός) 'broad (street)'; the Italian piazza and Spanish plaza have the same origin, and have been borrowed into English in parallel.

  • Learned borrowings

    Many more words were borrowed by scholars writing in Medieval and Renaissance Latin. Some words were borrowed in essentially their original meaning, often transmitted through classical Latin: topic, type, physics, iambic, eta, necromancy, cosmopolite. A few result from scribal errors: encyclopedia < ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία 'the circle of learning', not a compound in Greek; acne (skin condition) < erroneous ἀκνή < ἀκμή 'high point, acme'. Some kept their Latin form, e.g., podium < πόδιον.

  • Usage in neologisms

    But by far the largest Greek contribution to English vocabulary is the huge number of scientific, medical, and technical neologisms that have been coined by compounding Greek roots and affixes to produce novel words which never existed in the Greek language: utopia (1516, οὐ 'not' + τόπος 'place'), zoology (1669, ζῷον + λογία), hydrodynamics (1738, ὕδωρ + δυναμικός), photography (1834, φῶς + γραφικός), oocyte (1895, ᾠόν + κύτος), helicobacter (1989, ἕλιξ + βακτήριον).

  • Arabic

    Some Greek words were borrowed through Arabic and then Romance. Many are learned: alchemy (al- + χημεία or χημία), elixir (al- + ξήριον), alembic (al- + ἄμβιξ); but others are popular: botargo (ᾠοτάριχον), tajine (τάγηνον), and possibly quintal (κεντηνάριον < Latin centenarium (pondus)). Curiously, chemist appears to be a back-formation from alchemist.