Greek and Latin Word Roots

The study of word roots is called etymology, which means "the study of (-logy) true meaning (-etym)." Many English words, especially abstract nouns that end in -ion or -logy, come from Latin. Many scientific terms and a few regular English words come from Greek.

Greek and Latin words for me are like an "inside joke" for language. Someone who is not aware of Latin and Greek may use a word with its modern meaning, but I get to say to myself, "I know what that words started out meaning." We get to be in on the joke.

There are some tendencies. A particularly strong tendency is for concrete Latin words to take on abstract meanings in English. For example, the word obscurus in Latin means "dark," as in the curtain is closed or the sun has gone down. In English, of course, obscure means metaphorically dark, as in hard to understand. It still has a little bit of that concrete meaning when it is used as a verb - e.g. "that tree obscured my view." Pin It