Number & MeasureGreek → English
Heterogeneous
/ˌhɛtərəˈdʒiːniəs/adjective
Made up of parts that differ in kind, not uniform throughout.
The Greek roots
ἕτερος
héteros
the other of two
γένος
génos
kind, race
Literally: “of another kind”
The story of the word
Greek kept two words apart that English collapses into 'other': ἄλλος is another out of many, ἕτερος is the other one of a pair. That precision is why heterosexual literally says 'of the other one of the two', and why a heteroclite noun bends one way and then the other. The word entered English in the 1620s alongside its twin homogeneous, and statisticians still use the pair daily.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
heterodoxheterosexualhomogeneousgenus
In a sentence
The trial recruited a heterogeneous group, which makes the subgroup results hard to read.