Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Erg
/ɜːrɡ/noun
A unit of energy in the centimetre-gram-second system, equal to one ten-millionth of a joule.
The Greek roots
ἔργον
érgon
work, deed
Literally: “work”
Follow a root:ἔργον22 words
The story of the word
The British Association fixed the unit in 1873 and took ἔργον whole, adding nothing at all. One erg is the work done by a force of one dyne acting over one centimetre, which is very little: it takes ten million of them to make a joule. A different erg, the Saharan sand sea, comes from Arabic and shares nothing but the spelling.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1873
Same family
energyergonomicssurgeryallergy
In a sentence
Astronomers still quote burst energies in ergs out of sheer habit.