Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Aeroponics
/ˌɛəroʊˈpɒnɪks/noun
Growing plants with their roots suspended in air and fed by nutrient mist.
The Greek roots
ἀήρ
aḗr
air
πόνος
pónos
toil, labour
Literally: “air labour”
The story of the word
Built in the 1950s on the pattern of hydroponics, swapping ὕδωρ for ἀήρ. Plant physiologists wanted it first as a way of watching roots rather than growing food, since roots in soil cannot be observed without being destroyed. The commercial argument came later: mist uses a fraction of the water that a hydroponic tank does.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1950s
Same family
aerobicaerosolhydroponicsaeroplane
In a sentence
Seed potatoes are raised by aeroponics to keep soil pathogens out of the stock.