Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Palynology
/ˌpælɪˈnɒlədʒi/noun
The study of pollen and spores, living and fossil.
The Greek roots
παλύνειν
palýnein
to sprinkle, strew
-λογία
-logía
study of
Literally: “study of what is sprinkled”
The story of the word
Harold Hyde and David Williams proposed the name in 1944 in the Pollen Analysis Circular, choosing a Greek verb for sprinkling partly because it chimes with Latin pollen, fine flour. Pollen grains have almost indestructible outer walls, so a core of lake mud reads as a climate record going back thousands of years. Forensic palynology has put suspects at scenes on the strength of grains caught in a jacket seam.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1944
Same family
pollenpalynomorphgeology
In a sentence
Palynology showed the forest gave way to grassland within a single human lifetime.