Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Electronics
/ɪlɛkˈtrɑnɪks/noun
The branch of technology dealing with circuits that control the flow of electrons.
The Greek roots
ἤλεκτρον
ḗlektron
amber
Literally: “matters of amber”
Follow a root:ἤλεκτρον14 words
The story of the word
George Johnstone Stoney named the electron in 1891, six years before J. J. Thomson found the particle itself, reusing the old Greek word for amber that already sat inside electricity. Electronics as the name of a whole field followed in the 1910s and hardened when the trade journal Electronics began in 1930. An industry of silicon and vacuum still carries the name of tree resin.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1910s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
electronelectricityelectrodeelectrolyte
In a sentence
He studied electronics at night and fixed radios by day.
The electronics in the car cost more than the engine.