Earth & SkyGreek → English
Oceanography
/ˌoʊʃəˈnɑːɡrəfi/noun
The scientific study of the sea, its water, floor and life.
The Greek roots
Ὠκεανός
Ōkeanós
the encircling river
γράφειν
gráphein
to write, describe
Literally: “description of Ocean”
The story of the word
For Homer, Ὠκεανός was not a sea at all but a river running round the rim of the world, father of every spring and stream. Only later did the name attach to the open water beyond Gibraltar and then to the world's salt water in general. The compound is 19th-century, coined as sounding voyages began bringing back depth and temperature data nobody yet knew how to file.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
oceanicgeographyphotographyoceanology
In a sentence
She switched from physics to oceanography after a summer on a research vessel.