Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Agronomy
/əˈɡrɒnəmi/noun
The science of crop production and soil management.
The Greek roots
ἀγρός
agrós
field, farmland
νόμος
nómos
law, management
Literally: “the management of fields”
The story of the word
νόμος is the rule by which something is run, the same element that manages a household in economy, the stars in astronomy and the species list in taxonomy. The word reached English from French around 1800, as soil chemistry began turning farming into a laboratory discipline. Latin ager is a cousin of ἀγρός rather than a descendant, so agriculture resembles agronomy without passing through Greek to get there.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
economyastronomytaxonomyautonomy
In a sentence
She read agronomy at Wageningen and now advises on nitrogen budgets.