Everyday LifeGreek → English
Oenology
/iːˈnɒlədʒi/noun
The science of wine and winemaking.
The Greek roots
οἶνος
oînos
wine
λόγος
lógos
study, account
Literally: “study of wine”
The story of the word
οἶνος and Latin vinum look like one borrowing from the other, but the likelier account is that both picked up a wine-word already circulating around the Mediterranean before either language got there. Homer's sea is οἶνοψ, wine-faced, and translators have spent two centuries arguing about what colour he could possibly have meant. Oenology is the laboratory end of the subject, fermentation chemistry and vine physiology, while the drinking end kept oenophile.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
oenophileoenochoeoenomel
In a sentence
She switched from biochemistry to oenology and says it is the same job with better weather.
Bordeaux built its oenology faculty long before anyone else took the science seriously.