Earth & SkyGreek → English
Geology
/dʒiˈɑlədʒi/noun
The science of the rocks that make up a planet and the processes that shaped them.
The Greek roots
γῆ
gê
earth, land
λόγος
lógos
account, study
Literally: “study of the earth”
The story of the word
In its first English outings the word meant earthly matters as opposed to theology, a lawyer's and moralist's distinction rather than a scientist's. The modern sense settled in the eighteenth century, and the science that followed did more damage to received chronology than almost any other, since strata cannot be read in six thousand years. γῆ is the same earth that appears in the goddess Gaia, in geometry as land-measuring, and in the name George.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1735
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
geographygeometrygeothermalapogee
In a sentence
A weekend of geology on the coast path taught him to read the cliff like a page.