Earth & SkyGreek → English
Meteorology
/ˌmiːtiəˈrɑːlədʒi/noun
The science of the atmosphere and of weather.
The Greek roots
μετέωρα
metéōra
things aloft
-λογία
-logía
study, account
Literally: “study of things in the air”
The story of the word
Aristotle wrote a book called Μετεωρολογικά on everything that happens between the ground and the stars: clouds, winds, thunder, comets, the Milky Way. τὰ μετέωρα are simply things suspended aloft, so the title has nothing to do with meteors in our narrow sense. English took meteorology in the 1610s, when the subject was still weather lore with a barometer attached.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1610s
Same family
meteormeteorite
In a sentence
Modern meteorology is mostly fluid dynamics run on very large computers.