Talk:Greek and Latin roots in English

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Shouldn't this list be sorted according to if the originally meaning "bad" and related to German übel and Gothic ubilaz (both meaning roughly "bad"), as well as Dutch euwel (abuse), the origin of the word "bad", is however a mystery. 惑乱 分からん 16:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

According to Oxford Dictionary, the word "bad" comes from the Old English word "bǣddel", meaning hermaphrodite. - Scharb 05:14, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
"mal-" from the Latin malus can mean bad. Examples include malfunction and malcontent. Lore aura 17:29, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
dont know what evil is for sure but i know necro is death and many associate the two.--216.229.17.8 23:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


I agree, that makes sense.

Also i think acro- means hieght, and not shorten. Acrobat, acrophobia etc

Acro means "tip". The implications of "height" or "summit" arise from that, but the best definition is "tip" -Scharb 05:14, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] thunder, lightening, electricity, ect.

anyone know the latin form of any of the above three (or greek posibly.) --216.229.17.8 02:24, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Why do you ask? It would be easier to help you if we knew exactly what you'd want it for. Btw, "electricity" is greco-latin for "amber"? 惑乱 分からん 13:26, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

idk. it would put my mind at ease. im trying to put together an ideo for a video game, an MMO to be exact, and for the mage class its essentially an ellementalist, contorlling the six elements: fire, water, thunder, plant, earth, air. and for the different categories they would be separated into i wanted to ahve names of the specific section of magic. and i couldnt find one for thunder. so far the is is: pyromancy hydromancy aeromancy geomancy phytomancy ???- this is the thunder. if u have roots ( preferably ones that can end in 'o') either greek or latin, for thunder, lightening or any word of similar nature, please let me know. --Late Leo 00:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

actually, nevermind. i jsut foudn that bronto- (as in brontosaurus) literally means thudner in greek. thanks anyway though.--216.229.17.8 23:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting and Examples

Would it be possible to arrange this list in a slightly more tabular form so it would be easier to list whether the root is of greek or latin origin?

Also, would it be possible to list examples of English words using the roots? Of course a good deal of these are obvious enough, and indeed numerous enough, to not need examples, but I feel it might benefit someone exploring the uses of some of the rarer roots if we included medical or scientific words which are based on them. Specifically I'm interested in the roots used in entomology. For example Hymenoptera, lepidoptera etc. I could understand if this might be overly complicated and unnecessary, so I defer to the more experienced.Bdrydyk 21:07, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. I seem to recall that there is another article detailing "greek and latin roots with english derivitaves", which was substantially shorter, but should probably be merged into this article. -Scharb 05:21, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone, please if you have required information, keep arranging the list to a tabular style. Articles like this are the face of Wikipedia!

[edit] Problems With This Page and the Difference Between a Root and a Word

Could someone please define root for those editing this page? I have run across several problems with this page and I will list them now.


1. A word is not a root. "Atrium" and "arena" are Latin words, not Latin roots. Therefore, they do not belong on the Greek and Latin roots page unless they are being used to explain the etymological origin of a word taken from an actual root.

2. The introductory paragraph at the beginning of the page is ambiguous, and it is thus difficult to determine the purpose of the page.

3. The term "root" is ambiguous.

For example, one interpratation of the word root is the morphological root, the stem upon which grammatical inflected endings attach. By this definition, EQU- is the root meaning "horse."

e.g. (EQU + US, I = equus, equi - horse; EQU + ES, ITIS = eques, equitis - horseman)


However, by another interpretation the root is etymological, being "that element, common to all words of a group or kindred meaning, which remains after formative additions are removed" (Oxford, 395). By this definition EQU- is only derivatively a morphological root, coming ultimately down from the etymological root AC-, meaning "swift" but also giving rise to the morphological root, AQU- "water."


Note: If the etymological idea of what is to be a root is used, the letters Q and X should never appear in a Latin root, as Q always appears derivatively from C (meaning if you have a Q there is a more fundamental form) and X in Latin appears as a conglomeration of G and S or C and S. Similarly, Q should not appear in Greek, and X should only appear if being used to represent the Greek letter "chi," since "xi" serves the same function in Greek as it does in Latin.


All I ask is a resolution to the ambiguity of this page, because different people are editing it to different conceptions of the term root. One might consider breaking the page into two, one kind of root going on one page, another on another.

My apologies for a lack of Greek examples. I am slightly less familiar with Greek than with Latin.


Lewis, Charlton T., Ph. D. Oxford Elementary Latin Dictionary. Oxford University Press; New York. 1889.

[edit] ac- (2)

As I understand it, "Accelerate" in English is ad- (towards) + -celer- (speed), with the D assimilated to a C because it's followed by a soft C. Hence its opposite, "decelerate," since "de-" means "away from," the opposite of "ad-." I could be wrong, but I'm skeptical as to the claim made here. 69.142.150.232 01:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


--Response--

That does makes sense. I was actually skeptical about it the first time I read it myself. But it is in a table Latin roots in Oxford Elementary Latin Dictionary. It could be wrong. I do have one problem with your objection, however. In classical Latin, there was no soft C. If "ad-" assimilated with "celer," which would make sense, it is by virtue of the C being there, independent of its quality.

Darknobility759 13:37, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing info already existed!

Many words with no info here already had info at List of English prefixes, and some other articles which were deleted. I don't understand why those were deleted, and I hope this article isn't deleted as well. That's why I suggest you use the info that once existed (which can be found mirrored here) to make this a good article as soon as possible, before they throw the Wikipedia is not a dictionary bomb here too! Kreachure 22:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Size

The size of this article is becoming almost unmanageable! What can we do, separate it into smaller articles? That seems stupid somehow, but there's got to be a solution... Mrug2 00:42, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This page is so incorrect as to render it almost completely useless

As mentioned above, there is really no standard as to what is meant by "root" as some of these words are formed from Greek or Latin roots, and some are direct borrowings from Greek and Latin. But the larger problem is that so many of the entries are just plain incorrect; so many that editing them would be a major undertaking. Just looking at the first few:

ac (1)- meaning "sharp", as in "accent" : the word "accent" comes from Latin "ad-" meaning "towards" and "cant-" meaning "sing". Neither root's meaning has anything to do with "sharp" (although Latin "acr-" as in "acrid" does mean "sharp")

ac (2) -swift (derivatively aq- (water) and eq- (horse)) : the three examples given are from completely separate roots. "Accelerate" is from "ad-" as in the example above, and "celer" meaning "swift". "Aqua" means water, and is entirely unconnected with "ac-" in "accelerate". "equus" means "horse", and is also completely unconnected with either of the above two.

agr- "field" : the word "agriculture" comes from Latin, not Greek. The Latin root is found in the word "ager", which does mean "field".

aid- "burn", as in "audacious": The word "audacious" is connected with the Latin "audax", meaning "daring"; as far as I know it is not connected with any "aid" root, or with the meaning "burn"

al- "other", as in "alternate": The root here would not be "al" but "alter-"; there is an "ali-" root (as in "alien") which means "other"

an- "year": the root is "ann-"; e.g. Latin "annus"

This is just from the first few entries; I imagine the rest of the list is just as flawed. In my opinion, this article should really be removed, as it will only lead people interested in word roots in the wrong direction. __________________________________________________________ Response: Seconded. This page is fundamentally untrustworthy. While there are many things that are right, only a reader who already knows the answer will be able to discern fact from blatantly false fiction.


--RESPONSE: For the most part you are right, but some of your data is...well...wrong.--

AC (2) - You may be correct that the entry is false, but equus and aqua are words, not roots. Don't claim that they are roots.

AGR - agros is an Ancient Greek word meaning field, meaning yes, AGR is Greek. It was later absorbed into the Latin.

AID - This is the root before any grammatical changes are made to the word (changes that include the vowel shift to AUD). I can confirm that the Elementary Latin dictionary by the Oxford University Press does list this root as related to the word audacious, and I speculate (I don't think too wildly) that the relation comes in the prolific fire imagery related to a courageous spirit in ancient times.

AL - this ultimately comes from Greek allos, meaning other, meaning yes, the root is ultimately AL. The TER and I portions of the roots were later added in the Latin. Oh wait, this makes sense; they both share...oh my gosh...AL!

Oh wait, that looks like over half of your objections are factually inaccurate in some way. Maybe you should be as concerned with your own knowledge as with the accuracy of this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.10.242.178 (talk) 02:02, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

You're probably confusing aid- with aith- root. aith- is Greek, and the root means "to burn" - Greek αιθών means "burning" from αίθω. I'm skeptical about the relation between audax (and thus audeo, "to dare", from which it comes) and burning, though. I don't know of any Latin examples for aith- "burning" carrying over from Greek. This is coming from someone with five years of Greek and seven of Latin. I don't know a lot of the PIE roots for these things (which are all hypothetical in any case), nor the Greek/Latin roots off of the top of my head, but I came up with a few (such as 'bainw' to walk, march). Hope this helps.24.22.96.250 (talk) 05:35, 29 March 2008 (UTC)