Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Analog
/ˈænəlɒɡ/noun
Something corresponding to another thing, or a signal that varies continuously rather than in steps.
The Greek roots
ἀνά
aná
up, according to
λόγος
lógos
ratio, proportion, word
Literally: “in proportion”
The story of the word
In Greek mathematics ἀνάλογος means standing in the same ratio, and proportion is exactly what the engineers kept: an analogue signal is a voltage in proportion to a sound. The contrast with digital is a twentieth-century arrival; before computers the word mostly meant a biological counterpart, a wing to a fin. American spelling dropped the -ue for the technical sense and kept it for the biological one, not very consistently.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
analogylogiccatalogueanachronism
In a sentence
He records to tape because he wants the analog noise, not in spite of it.