Earth & SkyGreek → English
Hemisphere
/ˈhɛmɪsfɪr/noun
Half of the earth, or either of the two halves of the brain.
The Greek roots
ἡμι-
hēmi-
half
σφαῖρα
sphaîra
ball, globe
Literally: “half a ball”
The story of the word
ἡμι- is the same ancient element as Latin semi- and English semi, all of them worn from one older word for half. Greek astronomers used ἡμισφαίριον for the half of the celestial sphere standing above the horizon, meaning the part you can actually see from where you are. English took the word in the late 14th century for the halves of the earth, and anatomy applied it to the brain in the 17th.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- late 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
sphereatmospherebiospherehemiplegia
In a sentence
Christmas falls in high summer in the southern hemisphere.
The stroke affected the left hemisphere and with it her speech.