Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Dynamic
/daɪˈnæmɪk/adjective
Characterised by force, movement or constant change, or of a person, full of energy.
The Greek roots
δύναμις
dýnamis
power, ability
Literally: “having power”
Follow a root:δύναμις11 words
The story of the word
Leibniz named the study of forces dynamique in the 1690s, and English took dynamic from French physics early in the nineteenth century; the everyday sense of an energetic person follows within fifty years. In Aristotle δύναμις is potential, what a thing is able to become, set against ἐνέργεια, what it actually is. Alfred Nobel reached for the same word in 1867 when he needed a name for stabilised nitroglycerine.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1817
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
dynamitedynamodynastyaerodynamic
In a sentence
The dynamic between the two of them changed the moment money arrived.
It is a dynamic system, so any fixed answer is already out of date.