Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Cybernetics
/ˌsaɪbərˈnɛtɪks/noun
The study of control and communication in machines, organisms and organisations.
The Greek roots
κυβερνήτης
kybernḗtēs
steersman, pilot
Literally: “the art of the steersman”
Follow a root:κυβερνήτης5 words
The story of the word
Norbert Wiener named the field in 1948, taking the Greek word for a ship's helmsman because feedback steering was his central idea: measure the error, correct the course, measure again. He was not quite first. André-Marie Ampère had used cybernétique in 1834 for the science of governing a state, and the same Greek root had already reached English by another road as "govern". Everything with cyber- in front of it descends from this one 1948 title.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1948
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
governcyberspacecyborggubernatorial
In a sentence
Cybernetics gave biologists and engineers a shared vocabulary for feedback loops.