Earth & SkyGreek → English
Seismology
/saɪzˈmɑːlədʒi/noun
The science of earthquakes and of the waves that travel through the earth's interior.
The Greek roots
σεισμός
seismós
shaking, earthquake
λόγος
lógos
study, account
Literally: “study of earthquakes”
The story of the word
Robert Mallet named the science in 1858 while writing up the Neapolitan earthquake of the previous year, having walked the ruins measuring the direction of cracks in order to work backwards to the point underground where it began. Before that, Aristotle's explanation had held for two thousand years: winds trapped in caverns, struggling to escape. Homer's older answer is in Poseidon's title Ἐνοσίχθων, earth-shaker.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1858
Same family
seismicseismographseismometermicroseism
In a sentence
Seismology told us what the inside of the planet looks like without anyone going there.
She works in seismology, mostly on early warning systems.