Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Ornithology
/ˌɔːrnɪˈθɑːlədʒi/noun
The scientific study of birds.
The Greek roots
ὄρνις
órnis
bird
λόγος
lógos
study, account
Literally: “study of birds”
The story of the word
The -ith- in the middle comes from the genitive: ὄρνις, bird, has the stem ὄρνιθ- everywhere except the nominative, and compounds are built on the stem. Aristophanes wrote a comedy called Ὄρνιθες, in which two Athenians persuade the birds to build a city in the air and blockade the gods. The English word arrives in the 1640s, when gentlemen naturalists had begun describing what they shot rather than only eating it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1640s
Same family
ornithopterornithischianornithologist
In a sentence
He gave up chemistry for ornithology and has been cold ever since.
The book is half ornithology and half memoir.