Earth & SkyGreek → English
Hydrosphere
/ˈhaɪdrəsfɪr/noun
All the water on, under and above the surface of a planet, taken as a single system.
The Greek roots
ὕδωρ
húdōr
water
σφαῖρα
sphaîra
ball, globe
Literally: “water ball”
The story of the word
Nineteenth-century geologists sliced the planet into nested shells and gave each one a Greek name: lithosphere for the rock, atmosphere for the air, hydrosphere for the water, biosphere for the living film between them. σφαῖρα in Greek was an ordinary ball, the kind Nausicaa and her maids were throwing when Odysseus washed up. The set has kept growing, with cryosphere and magnetosphere added in the twentieth century.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
hydranthydraulicatmospherelithospheredehydrate
In a sentence
Only about three percent of the hydrosphere is fresh water, and most of that is locked in ice.